BIOLOGY   UBHARY 


SOME  BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

THE  ART  OF  NATURE 


SOME      BIRDS     OF 
THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

THE    ART    OF    NATURE 


H.   J.    MASSINGHAM 


E.  P.  BUTTON    AND  COMPANY 

681      FIFTH     AVENUE,      NEW      YORK 


JWQL 

LIB? 


(All  rights  reserved) 

PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


TO 


A  portion  of  the  material  of  this  book  has  appeared 
in  the  "  Contemporary  Review"  the  "  Nation"  the 
"  New  Statesman,"  the  "  Spectator,"  the  "  Athenaeum  " 
and  the  "  Dai'fa/  Herald"  I  wish  to  thank  their  editors 
for  the  use  of  it. 


"  Hark  !  in  what  rings, 
And  hymning  circulations  the  quick  world 

Awakes  and  sings 

The  rising  winds, 

And  falling  springs, 

Birds,  beasts,  all  things 
Adore  Him  in  their  kinds  ; 

Thus  all  is  hurled 

In  sacred  hymns  and  order ;    the  great  chime 
And  symphony  of  Nature." 

HENRY  VAUOHAN,  Silurist. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE   COAST  OF   SOUTH   WALES  .  .  .11 

II.  THE   FLATS      ......       28 

III.  A   CITY   OF   BIRDS     .             .             .  .  .50 

IV.  GILBERT   WHITE   AND   SELBORNE  .  .       78 
V.  BIRD-HAUNTED   LONDON    .             .  .  .92 

VI.  A   DORSET  DIARY     .             .             .  .  .137 

VII.  A   VILLAGE   IN  HAMPSHIRE         .  .  .167 

VIII.  CHARLES   WATERTON  197 


BIEDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

CHAPTER    I 

THE    COAST    OF    SOUTH    WALES 

I 

COMMUNITY 

THE  coast  of  Pembrokeshire  presses  rocks "and- stone's 
and  farm-houses  into  the  service  of  crc-es  and 
hedges  for  its  landscape,  and  one  can  climb  upon  one  of 
the  rock-cairns,  natural  cromlechs  studding  the  land  and 
patterned  with  orange  lichens  like  ritualist  carvings,  and 
look  over  a  valley  void  of  tree,  void  of  hedge,  over  an 
ambit  of  forty  miles,  and  humanized  only  by  the  little 
white  farm-houses  dotted  over  the  expanse  as  herring 
gulls  scatter  themselves  over  a  field.  The  coastline  is 
deeply  indented,  forming  here  a  broad  sandy  bay  horned 
by  scarred  headlands,  with  their  snouts  thrust  far  into 
the  sea  ;  here  a  grim  little  cove  draped  with  bladder- 
wrack,  bronze  in  the  rays  of  the  westering  sun  and  with 
perhaps  a  huge  monolith  uplifted  from  its  arms  and  darkly 
sacrificial  in  appearance  ;  here  narrow  fissures  and  caves 
tunnelling  far  into  the  land  ;  here  masses  of  plutonic 
rock  like  dismantled  fortresses,  and  here  friable  composites 
so  terrassed,  frilled  away  and  gnawed  by  the  chisels  and 
hammers  and  awls  and  rams  of  breakers,  winds,  rains, 
and  frosts,  that  they  look  like  the  angular  diagrams  of 
citadels.  Out  at  sea  lie  rocky  islets  whose  irregular 
contours  seem  the  petrified  forms  of  scaled  and  warted 
amphibians,  recumbent  in  the  shallow  Permian  floods. 
For  this  is  an  ancient  land,  and  for  the  shadowed  brakes 
and  leafy  shelters  of  newer  ages  one  goes  to  the  lower 
rock-pools,  where  great  bladed  Laminarians,  wavy  sea- 

11 


12        BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

lettuce  and  delicate  sea-grass  wave  their  glaucous  fronds 
in  the  watery  twilight.  Yet  sombreness  and  desolation, 
even  on  the  barest  moorland,  are  only  a  passing  impression, 
for,  apart  from  the  sunsets  over  the  sea,  populous  with 
tints  and  shapes  of  every  variety,  the  land  on  a  fine  autumn 
day  is  suffused  with  an  opalescence  into  which  the  greens 
and  browns  of  the  earth  are  distilled,  so  that  it  has  no  more 
substance  than  the  heavens. 

But  the  birds  were  the  country's  refinement,  expressing 
its  primeval  qualities  not  only  by  their  wild  cries  and 
flights,  but,  paradoxical  as  it  sounds,  by  their  social  life. 
In  these  solitudes  they  were  largely  undisturbed,  but  I 
was  justified  in  looking  further  than  this,  and  in  seeing 
in  these  communities,  not  only  of  individuals,  but  of 
species,/ a  condition  of  existence  antedating  their  break-up 
by  man.  l  Autumn  is  a  signal  for  flocking,  even  among 
-unsocial  species,  partly  for  migration  (all  our  birds,  except 
the  town  sparrows,  migrate,  whether  for  a  thousand  miles 
or  a  thousand  yards),  partly  owing  to  the  growing  scarcity 
of  food  and  the  need  of  combining  resources  to  secure  it. 
But  sociabilit}^  is  not  confined  to  use,  and  in  these  rock- 
bound  wastes  of  sand,  turf,  bramble,  gorse,  ling  and  bracken, 
I  was  in  a  playground  as  well  as  a  market-place,  where 
I  was  a  spectator  from  an  unhappy  world  of  a  glee  and 
lightheartedness  articulated  both  in  music  and  in  dis- 
ciplined mobility.  Starlings,  daws,  and  rooks  always  get 
on  well  together  ;  here  they  had  learned  to  sport  as  well 
as  dine  in  company.1 

When  a  lifting  of  the  clouds  had  brought  with  it  a 
lifting  of  the  birds'  spirits,  the  starling  squadrons  used 
to  bear  right  through  the  flank  of  the  stippled  rook  mass 
without  breaking  it  or  confusing  their  own  order  and 
wheel  and  plunge  through  the  vanguard,  emerging  like 
light  cavalry  from  the  front  of  the  advancing  surge. 

I  once  witnessed  a  beautiful  manoeuvre  of  these  starlings. 

1  Had  a  Martian  naturalist  visited  this  coast,  he  would  have 
smiled  indulgently  if  some  countryman  had  told  him  that  rooks 
are  a  tree-tribe  and  called  black  by  the  men  of  this  earth.  He 
would  have  been  right  about  the  colour,  for  in  this  country  one  sees 
rooks  in  their  actual  dress,  not  by  our  impression  of  it — living, 
iridescent,  satin  purple,  glancing  blue  and  bottle  green. 


THE  COAST  OF   SOUTH  WALES        13 

They  were  in  the  habit  of  using  one  of  the  rock  tumuli 
upreared  from  the  plain  as  a  base  for  their  wonderful 
corporate  parade-flights,  evolved  out  of  centuries  of  social 
life,  leaderless  and  psychically  directed  by  "  but  a  single 
thought."  They  flew  off  some  way  from  the  squat  tower 
of  rock,  thinned  their  compact  body  into  a  long  column, 
and  made  at  it  at  full  speed.  The  van  of  the  column 
rounded  the  rock,  appearing  on  the  other  (my)  side  of 
it,  but,  instead  of  the  rest  of  the  line  following,  the  cable 
was  broken,  and  the  van,  leaving  the  rocks,  united  with 
the  rear,  which  had  made  one  of  those  simultaneous 
right-about-turns  habitual  with  starlings,  and  emerged 
on  its  side  at  the  same  time  as  the  front  ranks.  One 
speaks  in  military  terms  of  these  intricate  figures,  but 
their  rhythmical  formality  is  never  rigid,  and  they  are 
really  festival  dances  of  the  air,  a  leaping  pulsation  of 
life  whose  discipline  is  the  condition  of  its  freedom. 

A  collection  of  units  is  not  of  course  a  social  order, 
but  winter  starlings  are  a  corporate  body  with  conventions 
and  traditions  of  its  own,  while  their  active  co-operation 
pro  bono  publico  both  coincides  with  and  enlarges  their 
capacity  for  happiness  and  for  expressing  what  they  feel 
in  an  artistic  form  of  which  they  must  surely  be  to  some 
extent  conscious.  The  sense  of  obligation  to  the  social 
bond,  instinctive  in  birds  with  a  long  social  inheritance, 
reacts  upon  the  flock  by  making  each  member  of  it  more 
of  an  individual  without  being  an  individualist  and 
encroaching  upon  the  rights  of  his  fellows.  Each  for 
himself  in  a  flock  or  pack  would  make  it  extinct.  Actual 
observation  of  animal  societies  makes  it  .easy  to  under- 
stand how  the  more  subtle  and  elaborate  human  societies 
are  developed  from  them,  and  how  a  closer  integration 
fosters  rather  than  checks  a  wider  differentiation. 

It  was  strange  to  see  magpies  commingled  with  the 
rook,  daw,  and  starling  communities,  an  association  I 
have  never  seen  in  any  other  part  of  the  country — shouting 
with  them,  like  them  tumbling  and  careering  in  misty- 
winged  flight  about  the  rocks,  like  them  perched  in  silence 
upon  them.  I  noticed  one  evening  that  magpies  were 
making  for  the  same  mass  of  rock  ribboned  by  the  starlings, 
and  the  sleeping  chamber  of  the  buzzards,  singly,  and  in 


14         BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

twos  and  threes,  from  all  points  of  the  compass.  Finally, 
twenty-three  had  assembled,  and  with  their  long  tails 
fanned,  they  began  to  gambol  about  the  rock-face,  chasing 
one  another  up  and  down  and  to  and  fro,  occasionally 
alighting  on  the  summit,  and  then  flinging  themselves 
overboard  with  a  gaiety  and  abandon  of  spirits  that 
made  me  wish  for  a  metamorphosis  into  their  form. 
They  looked  like  enormous,  long-tailed,  pied  butterflies, 
flickering  about  a  sunny  wall  (for  the  sun's  level  rays 
were  caught  upon  the  rocks),  and  when  they  were  at 
rest  (as  happened  rarely)  like  rows  of  guillemots  on  the 
ledges  of  sea-cliffs.  Then  the  congregation  gradually 
dispersed,  the  pleasure  party  was  over,  and  in  the  gathering 
darkness  the  three  buzzards,  who  lived  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, were  circling  on  motionless  pinions  above  the  ancient 
crown  of  the  rock  pavilion.  It  would  not,  perhaps,  be 
altogether  fantastic  to  see  in  this  rendezvousing  for  evening 
entertainments  a  tradition  of  the  magpie  tribe,  broken 
elsewhere,  but  preserved  in  its  continuity  in  a  place  where 
the  larger  birds  are  still  permitted  to  exist,  for  even 
curlew  put  aside  their  wildness  here,  and  stalked  the 
field  next  to  my  cottage  like  turkeys,  curlew  which  else- 
where are,  to  us,  but  the  disembodied  voices  of  mystery 
and  remoteness.1 

The  magpies  remind  me  of  the  pied  wagtails,  which  are 
a  duodecimo  edition  of  them  in  colouring,  and  volatile, 
inconsequent  nature.  A  flock  of  over  forty  used  to 
roost  in  the  tall  bracken  thirty  feet  away  from  the  house, 
and  here,  too,  there  was  ceremony.  They  took  about 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  every  evening  to  settle  down  ; 
first  sibilating  and  prancing  round  in  the  air  in  their 
helter-skelter  manner,  like  leaves  whirled  by  contrary 
gusts,  swooping  and  dipping  about,  until,  one  by  one, 
they  came  down  upon  the  tips  of  the  bracken.  Then 
up  they  rose,  flew  about  like  mad,  and  darted  down  upon 

1  Many  more  weeks  of  observation  that  I  was  able  to  afford 
would  be  necessary  to  discover  whether  these  parties  were  a  regular 
feature  of  magpie  life  in  this  district.  But  I  am  sure  it  could  not 
have  been  a  chance  gathering,  for  the  birds  lived  in  pairs  and 
small  family  parties  over  the  country,  each  pair  or  group,  so  far 
as  I  could  see,  living  in  a  more  or  less  definite  area. 


THE  COAST  OF  SOUTH  WALES        15 

the  roof,  pranking  about  on  it  in  their  clean  winter  livery, 
and  then  up  again,  and,  after  another  waltz  round,  down 
upon  the  bracken,  perched  on  the  thick  vegetation  like 
minute  fairy  clowns.  Then  up  again,  blown  upon  by  the 
slightest  puff  of  caprice,  their  little  feather  heads  summon- 
ing them  for  yet  another  burst  of  unstable  energy.  But 
there  was  more  in  them  than  I  thought,  for  one  night, 
they  were  performing  in  the  usual  way,  when  the  fierce 
little  blue  hawk,  the  merlin,  swooped  like  a  javelin 
upon  them,  and  with  loud  chirri  chirris  they  rose  in  a 
body,  not,  as  I  expected,  in  a  panic,  but  a  fury,  and  dis- 
appeared from  my  astonished  gaze  at  the  heels  of  the 
merlin,  who  took  himself  off  as  quickly  as  he  came.  They 
were  soon  back  again,  wagging  their  tails  in  insolent 
triumph  behind  them.1 

Meadow  and  rock  pipits  (which  are  not  a  rare  bird,  as 
commonly  assumed)  are  also  being  constantly  caught  in 
several  minds  as  to  where  they  shall  go,  rushing  about 
for  minutes  at  a  time  before  they  make  them  up  in  a 
flight  which,  owing  to  the  short  intervals  between  the 
closing  of  the  wings,  is  not  one  of  curves  like  that  of 
chaffinches  and  wagtails,  but  acute  angles,  so  that,  in 
flocks,  they  look  like  the  diagrams  of  constellations  in 
the  first  page  of  The  Times  atlas.  But,  disorderly  as 
their  movements  are,  they  are  driven  by  the  exhilaration 
of  social  contact,  and  seem,  like  those  constellations,  to 
obey  a  complex  planetary  force  of  attractions  and  repulsions 
whose  mighty  music  we  hear  in  the  poets. 

In  this  stern  land  linnets  abounded,  tenderest  of  the 
race  of  birds,  and  I  would  often  stumble  into  the  magic 
circle  of  a  linnet  choir.  Bounding  through  the  air,  they 
would  turn  some  wind-corner  at  right  angles,  and  come 
pelting  down  among  the  gorse  in  which  I  stood,  and 
burst  into  iridescent  peals  of  fairy  music,  as  though  the 
burning  bushes  were  translating  into  song  the  secret  of 
their  beauty  and  their  fragrance.  Or,  in  the  evening,  when 
the  spectral  tide  of  mist  was  curtaining  the  ground,  I 

1  Surely  a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  protective  and 
survival  value  of  social  life  among  animals.  The  merlin  fre- 
quently comes  to  the  coast  from  the  "  interior "  in  the  autumn 
to  prey  upon  small  waders,  pipits,  wheatears,  etc. 


16        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

would  hear  that  concert  of  sweet  sounds  penetrating  it, 
though  the  singers  were  invisible  to  me,  and  the  very 
atmosphere  was  as  laden  with  melody  as  the  grass  blades 
with  drops  of  water. 

The  waders,  except  the  large  whimbrel  and  curlew,  only 
used  the  bays  as  inns,  refreshing  themselves  for  a  few 
hours  and  continuing  their  journey  (some  of  them  from 
the  Arctic)  southward.  However  small  the  party,  the 
different  species  mixed,  and  where  in  the  morning  the 
tawny  sands  stretched  out  in  solitude,  there  in  the  after- 
noon were  ringed  plover,  dunlin,  and  little  stint  to  gladden 
them,  darting  to  and  fro  after  the  amphipods,  like 
shrimp  in  a  pool,  while  in  comical  imperturbability  and 
ungainly  dignity,  to  make  a  contrast  with  these  shore- 
sprites,  trailing  tails  along  the  sand,  and  holding  heads 
high  in  air,  shambled  to  the  water's  edge  the  shags  in 
their  dark,  metallic  greens,  grotesque,  clockwork  toys, 
Neanderthal  birds.1 

The  tame  curlew  (the  tame  curlew  !  it  is  like  speaking 
of  a  shirtless  waiter.)  enhanced  the  impression  of  the 
companionableness  of  life  in  these  solitudes.  Free  from 
persecution,  they  used  to  disport  themselves  in  the  air 
above  my  head,  their  long  incurved  bills  very  conspicuous 
against  the  background  of  flawless  sky,  which  threw  into 
relief  the  delicate  reddish  grey  of  the  plumage.  Among 
the  rocks,  clustered  with  naticas,  acorn-barnacles  and 
limpets,  the  plumage  is  a  duller  monotone  of  sandy  brown. 
They  are  not  always  sure-footed  when  climbing  among 
the  long  streamers  of  bladder-wrack  draped  from  the 
rocks,  nor  prudent  at  table.  I  once  saw  a  curlew  drag 
out  a  large  crab  from  a  crevice,  despatch  it  with  blows 
from  the  bill,  and  then  nearly  choke  himself  with  it, 
dancing  about  on  his  shanks  and  shaking  his  fine  head. 
A  pair  of  whimbrel  usually  associated  with  them  on  the 
shore,  easily  distinguishable  from  curlew  at  twenty-five 
yards  range  (at  which  distance  I  would  sit  in  plain  view 
and  watch  them)  by  smaller  size  and  bill,  darker  crown 

1  The  shag,  though  more  local  than  the  cormorant,  takes  its 
place  in  Pembrokeshire.  In  diving  for  fish,  the  bird  (like  the 
cormorant)  leaps  right  out  of  the  water,  turns  a  semi-circle, 
then  goei  in  head  first. 


,. 


THE  COAST  OF  SOUTH  WALES        17 

and  a  whiteish  eye-stripe  running  above  the  eye  and 
circling  the  crown  like  a  diadem,  as  in  the  woodlark. 
The  whimbrel  character,  too,  is  different,  more  sedate 
and  bolder.  They  stalked  magnificently  about  the  rocks 
and  ran  out  into  the  trough  of  a  receding  wave  after  a 
little  flat-fish  and  then  hard  back  again  to  escape  the 
next  roller.  The  whimbrel  breeds  nowhere  in  these 
islands  except  in  the  Orkneys  and  Shetlands,  I  believe, 
and  my  pair  stayed  only  a  few  days  before  the  tidal  impulse 
of  migration  caught  them  once  more  and  swept  them 
southward.  When  they  took  flight  with  the  curlew,  their 
strident  cries  were  queerly  out  of  harmony  with  the 
whistle  of  the  curlew,  most  musical,  most  melancholy.1 

The  artistry  of  bird  life  gains  not  by  economy  but 
multiplying,  and  its  sociability  is  thus  a  delight  to  us  as 
it  is  to  them. 

Two  illustrations  of  this  intensifying  beauty  of  multi- 
plication occur  to  me  which  may  just  be  worth  relating. 
I  was  watching  the  nuptial  offices  of  herring  gulls  on  a 
broad  spit  of  sand  outside  Poole  Harbour.  I  have  noticed 
that  this  gull,  after  pairing  with  his  mate,  will  sometimes 
stand  erect  (without  the  aid  of  the  glass  he  looks  as  though 
he  were  on  tiptoe)  upon  her  back,  quite  motionless,  except 
for  movements  of  the  tail,  with  fully  extended  wings 
and  shouting  at  the  top  of  his  voice.  It  is  as  though 
he  called  bright  sun,  sparkling  waters,  golden  sand  and 
scented  air  to  witness  his  services  in  the  perpetuation  of 
life.  By  a  strange  coincidence  it  chanced  that  half  a 
dozen  of  the  birds  were  posed  in  this  manner -at  the  same 
tune  and  all  loudly  declaiming  their  epithalamia.  Visual- 
izing the  scene  over  again,  I  can  only  see  its  comedy.  But 
though  one  gull,  thus  advertising  his  share  hi  the  con- 
tributions of  the  species  to  the  future  birthrate,  is  of 
psychological  rather  than  of  aesthetic  interest,  the  six  of 
them  rejoicing  in  unison  became  something  entirely 
different — partakers  in  a  ceremonial,  a  thanksgiving  rite 
which  seemed  to  reveal  the  dim  origins  of  the  manifold 
religious  forms  of  savage  tribes  in  sacrificing  or  making 
offerings  to  or  dancing  before  their  gods  in  gratitude  or 
appeal  for  fertility.  The  action  of  the  birds  became 

1  A  local  name  of  the  whimbrel  (from  the  cry)  is  the  titterel. 

2 


18        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

formal    and    conventionalized    into    a    kind    of    artistic 
rhythm. 

For  the  second  illustration,  I  was  visiting  a  gullery 
on  the  coast  of  the  Isle  of  Wight.  Hundreds  of  birds  were 
flying  overhead  and  wailing  together  in  a  tangle  of  wild 
cries,  intercrossing  in  beautiful  curves  and  patterns 
between  two  skies,  and  rounding  the  air  for  minutes  at 
a  time  without  moving  their  angular,  thin-bladed  wings. 
Others  were  seated  on  their  nests  among  the  samphire — 
mere  untidy  wisps  of  hay — while  others  stood  out  upon 
the  points  and  bluffs  of  the  chalk  cliffs,  festooned  with 
ribands  and  patches  of  bright  green  grass,  the  rocks 
scattered  among  them  burnished  with  the  pale  gold 
of  algae.  It  was  the  colour  of  the  manes  of  Blake's 
lions.  The  intimate  harmony  of  white  cliff,  white  bird, 
blue  sea  and  sky,  green  grass  and  golden  algae,  was  such 
that  the  animate  gave  personality  and  expression,  gave 
the  grace,  freedom  and  intensity  of  the  living  to  the 
inanimate.  It  was  the  gull  mass  rather  than  the  gulls 
which  breathed  life  into  the  dead  cliffs.  "  Beauty  and 
sublimity  in  nature,"  wrote  Professor  Pringle-Pattison, 
"  are  not  subjective  imaginings ;  they  give  us  a  deeper 
truth  than  ordinary  vision,  just  as  the  more  developed 
eye  or  ear  carries  us  further  into  Nature's  refinements 
and  beauties."  But  to  appreciate  the  ulterior  value  of 
landscape  we  must  have  life  in  it  and  to  deepen  our  appre- 
ciation, multitudinous  life,  and  it  is  then  that  the  animism 
of  past  ages  becomes  a  reality  to  us.  As  Lord  Kelvin  said 
so  justly :  "  A  tree  contains  more  mystery  of  creative 
power  than  the  sun  from  which  all  its  mechanical  energy 
is  borrowed.  An  earth  without  life,  a  sun  and  countless 
stars  contain  less  wonder  than  that  grain  of  mignonette." 
How  much  less  wonder  than  a  bird  of  the  air !  In  its 
beginning  the  earth  gave  life  to  her  creatures  ;  they  were 
born  of  her  dust,  and  in  return  they  give  life  to  her. 

In  the  sandy  bay  (a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  length  and,  at 
low  tide,  a  hundred  yards  in  depth)  and  on  the  headlands 
in  sight  I  once  reckoned  thirteen  hundred  gulls,  greater  and 
lesser  blackbacks,  blackheads,  and  common  and  herring 
gulls,  and  as  the  beauty  of  this  physical  world  is  sometimes 
unearthly  when  the  spirit  behind  its  substance  seems  to 


THE  COAST  OF    SOUTH  WALES        19 

break  through  into  visibility,  so  the  rays  of  the  sun 
balanced  on  the  horizon's  rim,  throwing  golden  shafts 
over  the  sea,  and  pouring  into  the  blacks  and  pearls  and 
whites  of  this  gull  multitude,  was  the  handiwork  of  a 
supreme  artist  "  whose  smile  kindles  the  universe."  The 
seaward  sky  was  lit  up  with  a  salmon  pink  effulgence, 
hazed  with  gold  and  arched  over  waters  of  the  lightest 
sea-green,  the  crests  of  the  wavelets  breaking  on  the 
shore  reflecting  the  ultramarine  of  the  landward  sky, 
while  the  wet  sand  reflected  the  pink  light,  turning  to  a 
delicate  purple  under  the  shadow  of  the  black  headlands, 
and  the  waters  of  the  pools  the  lustre  of  the  sun's  disc. 
Within  this  vast  theatre  of  interchanging  colours,  the 
sun's  rays,  broken  into  fragments  like  stained  glass  on 
the  surface  of  the  sea,  and  radiant  as  the  prismatic  feathers 
of  a  humming  bird,  tinged  the  white  breasts  of  the  gulls 
into  a  roseate  blush  of  a  loveliness  that  was  hardly  of  this 
world.  It  was  the  further  world  of  Prometheus  Unbound, 
and  these  gulls  might  well  have  been  the  Spirits  of  the 
Hours,  declaring  with  the  heavens  the  glory  of  the  Lord. 


II 

THE  INDIVIDUAL 

A  solitary  heron  frequented  one  of  the  little  rocky  bays, 
and  the  sight  of  his  thin  form,  angular  as  the  shadows 
of  the  rocks,  brought  me  a  contrasting  impression — that 
of  the  wildness  and  apartness  of  the  land  on  which  I 
moved,  a  stranger.  I  shall,  therefore,  continue  this 
chapter  with  an  account  of  two  birds  less  social  than  the 
others,  and  expressing  as  few  others  do  to  the  same  extent, 
the  spirit  of  places  untrammelled  by  human  labour,  abiding 
through  all  human  change  and  withdrawn  from  human 
influence — the  stonechat  and  the  buzzard. 

The  stonechat  is  a  gaily  painted  little  bird,'  and  does 
not  shun  the  bright  eye  of  day.  His  clothing  is  indeed 
almost  as  rich  as  the  siskin's  or  yellow-hammer's — head 
and  throat  a  velvety  black  bordered  by  a  white  collar, 
back  also  black  and  marginated  with  chestnut,  deep 
brown  wings  with  a  white  patch  conspicuous  in  flight, 


20        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

rump  white,  and  breast  a  vivid  rufous  paling  to  rusty 
red  in  the  autumn.  The  females  and  young  are  duller. 
Stonechat  and  wheatear  are  birds  of  the  waste,  but 
each  lives  in  its  own  kingdom,  the  wheatear  on  sheep- 
walks,  downs  and  stony  uplands,  the  stonechat  in  thick 
scrub  and  on  gorse  and  bramble-clumped  commons. 
On  this  coast  the  two  kinds  of  country  were  often  only 
separated  by  a  frontier  turf  wall,  and  though  both  species 
perched  upon  the  wall  as  common  ground,  they  never 
trespassed,  unlike  the  internationalist  linnet  and  meadow 
pipit. 

The  stonechat  was  so  common  in  the  land  that,  except 
for  the  pipits  and  linnets,  it  outnumbered  all  the  other 
small  birds,  its  double  pebble-clapping  call-notes — hwit- 
jack,  hwit- jack- jack — spurting  into  the  air  in  every  direction 
I  walked.  Though  not  a  social  bird,  it  is  his  custom  to 
travel  about  in  small  family  parties  from  the  tips  of 
furze  or  bramble  and  over  the  highest  fronds  of  the 
bracken.  Distinctive  in  habit  and  colouring  as  they  are, 
they  wave  their  tails  on  their  perches  vertically  like 
wheatears,  spring  into  the  air  and  hover,  a  variegated 
ball  of  colour  in  the  sunlight,  like  pipits,  plunge  after 
flying  insects  like  fly-catchers,  and  flicker  their  wings  on 
alighting  like  hedge-sparrows.  But  these  tricks  of  manner 
are  not  plagiarisms  or  gobbets,  being  blended  into  the 
whole  musical  phase  of  the  stonechat's  individuality. 
They  are  motionless  for  about  ten  seconds  to  the  minute 
on  their  exposed  perches,  silhouetted  like  toy  birds  at 
the  extreme  point  of  their  bush  or  plant.  A  favourite 
perching  place  was  the  top  of  foxglove  stems  with  the 
wide,  slaty  sea  for  a  background.  It  was  intriguing 
to  see  these  little  Italian  Comedy  birds  standing  erect 
against  the  huge,  uniform  canvas  of  the  grey  and  furious 
sea — poetic,  but  with  a  touch  of  the  fantastic.  Then 
down  among  the  long  grasses  or  up  in  the  air  and  back 
upon  their  lighthouses,  throwing  out  invisible  rays  of 
what  speculation  we  know  not  over  the  wilderness. 

In  action,  the  stonechat  is  agile  and  sprightly,  and 
association  is  no  doubt  responsible  for  the  legend  that 
he  takes  none  too  rosy  a  view  of  life.  But  there  is  no 
call  to  be  so  anthropomorphic  about  him  or  libel  the 


THE  COAST  OF  SOUTH  WALES        21 

immortal  gladness  of  nature.  All  we  can  say,  as  we 
watch  him  restlessly  flit  from  one  plant  head  to  another, 
a  minute  Ahasuerus  of  the  waste,  is  that  unconsciously 
he  seems  to  gather  into  his  pretty  body  something  of  the 
brooding  solitariness  of  his  environment. 

A  more  profitable  reflection  comes  from  observing  the 
character  and  quality  of  the  song.  Like  many  other 
birds,  the  stonechat  resumes  singing  after  the  moult, 
even  in  hard  weather.  The  song  is  inaudible  at  any 
distance,  and  incapable  of  being  sustained  for  more  than  a 
few  notes.  But  though  less  varied  and  exuberant  than 
the  wheatear's,  it  is  one  of  the  sweetest  in  minor  bird 
music — sweeter  than  the  whinchat's,  which  is  harder — a 
silvery,  low  and  desultory  warble.  There  is  a  perceptible 
resemblance  in  it  to  the  shrilling  notes  of  the  robin,  but 
it  does  not  glow  like  his,  and  is  much  more  subdued  in 
tone.  Now,  it  is  noticeable  that  the  small  birds  which 
inhabit  rough  and  stern  desert  places,  smitten  by  the 
wind,  have  a  peculiar  delicacy  and  fragility  of  song- 
voices  of  porcelain.  Linnet,  wheatear,  rock  and  meadow 
pipit,  goldfinch,  whinchat — their  singing  is  of  a  pearly 
lustre,  quite  different  from  the  diamond  brilliance  of  the 
louder  and  coarser  notes  of  the  wood-birds.  Among 
the  larger  birds,  the  contrast  is  achieved  more  on  the 
plane  of  colour  and  form — the  luminous  whiteness  of 
herring  gulls,  the  roseate  breasts  of  one  species  of  tern, 
the  delicate  pencillings  of  the  plumage  of  curlew,,  whimbrel 
and  the  smaller  wading  birds,  the  masterpieces  of  line 
in  their  elegant  shapes.  It  is  the  same  with  the  flowers, 
the  eyebright  and  thyme  on  the  sheepwalk,  the  thrift 
among  the  rocks.  And  the  contrasts  appear  in  different 
terms,  one  intertwining  with  another — the  slenderness 
of  the  harebell  accentuating  its  own  and  its  neighbour's 
value,  the  fiery  stain  of  the  ragwort  relieving  and  intensi- 
fying the  uncouth  and  colourless  waste,  each  by  its  distinct 
and  opposite  quality.  So  the  warble  of  the  stonechat, 
uttered  in  spring  when  hovering  in  the  air,  and  in  more 
meditative  autumn  from  a  perch,  is  an  aesthetic  device 
of  the  most  fertile  of  artists  to  mingle  and  relieve  her 
beauties,  and  is  to  the  rough  furze-clad  common  what 
the  coral  bill  of  the  chough  is  to  his  black  body,  and  the 


22        BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

crimson  flowers  of  the  red-rattle  to  the  drabness  of  the 
marsh. 

But  if  contrast  is  one  method,  expression,  the  expliciting 
of  the  implicit,  to  use  a  clumsy  phrase,  is  another,  and  this 
brings  me  to  the  buzzard,  whose  life  and  movement 
translate  into  a  more  active  music  the  character  of  his 
home. 

The  buzzard — Butco  vulgaris  as  he  is  called  with 
unconscious  irony — has  taken  a  better  hold  on  life  since 
the  war,  and  somewhat  broadened  his  distribution,  not 
because  gamekeepers  are  any  more  intelligent  or  merciful 
than  they  were  (many  of  them  still  regard  nightjars  as 
a  kind  of  hawk,  and  string  them  up  on  a  branch  as 
feathered  felons),  but  because  of  the  relaxation  of  game- 
preserving.  If  it  can  hardly  be  expected  for  some  years 
to  come  that  gamekeepers  or  collectors  will  acquire  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  science  or  regard  for  other 
people,  still  the  fact  that  the  buzzard's  food  is  practically 
the  same  as  the  kestrel's — blindworms,  adders,  lizards, 
mice,  rats,  moles,  frogs,  earthworms,  crane  flies,  grass- 
hoppers, Coleoptera,  etc. — should  penetrate  the  skull  of 
the  game-preserver  and  allow  this  very  handsome  species 
a  corner  in  the  sun. 

The  buzzard  is  coloured  mottled  brown  with  silvery  flecks 
and  bufnsh  variations,  and  is  easily  distinguishable  from 
other  hawks  by  large  size  (except  for  the  Iceland  Falcon, 
it  is  the  biggest  of  the  Falconidce),  a  leisureliness  of  dis- 
position, and,  when  the  bird  is  soaring,  by  the  roundness 
of  the  wings,  which  are  curved  upwards  at  the  terminal 
feathers  and  show  the  sky  between  the  primary  quills, 
as  do  the  raven's.  In  districts  where  they  are  left  at 
peace,  they  are  more  social  than  most  of  their  fellow 
falcons  ;  they  migrate  in  company,  and  in  the  autumn 
travel  in  small  family  parties. 

It  was  thus  that  I  saw  them  every  day  for  nearly 
three  weeks,  for  their  residence  was  only  a  hundred  yards 
from  mine,  that  same  conical,  granite  pile  isolated  on 
the  moorland,  where  the  starlings  held  their  air-sports. 
Being  from  East  Anglia,  where  they  shoot  everything 
that  moves,  I  was  amazed  at  the  tameness  of  these  great 
birds,  and  that  they  did  not  salute  the  sovereignty  of 


THE   COAST  OF  SOUTH  WALES        23 

the  human  form  divine  by  getting  out  of  its  way  as  quickly 
as  they  could.  But  the  absence  of  game-preserves  and 
the  kindlier  sentiments  of  the  neighbouring  farmers  were 
not  the  only  reasons  for  the  approachableness  of  these 
buzzards.  Without  his  being  exactly  lazy  or  inert  in 
temper,  the  metabolism  of  the  bird  leans  to  the  passive, 
and  he  is  lacking  in  the  initiative  and  dashing,  mettlesome 
spirit  of  the  peregrine  and  the  merlin.  In  fact,  I  should 
call  him  rather  a  meek  bird.  He  is  very  conservative 
and  never  in  a  hurry,  remaining  for  hours  at  a  time  on 
the  same  perch  in  the  calm  of  lethargy,  frequenting  it 
regularly  and  sticking  to  his  own  neighbourhood.  But 
the  most  remarkable  thing  about  the  buzzard,  as  indeed 
about  the  kite,  is  a  kind  of  dualism  of  appearance.  On 
the  ground  and  in  the  lower  ether  he  is  quite  without 
distinction  or  nobility,  dragging  his  body  through  the 
air  with  heavy  flaps  of  the  wings  and  looking  as  dowdy 
and  sullen  when  perched  on  some  eminence  of  rock  with 
all  the  drapery  of  moor,  cliff  and  sea  about  him — a 
hunchback  Richard  III  on  the  throne  in  his  state  room — 
as  upon  the  turf  walls  and  the  tops  of  the  cornstooks. 
In  the  trailing  flight  close  to  the  ground  there  is  no  grace, 
poise  nor  rhythm  :  it  is  simply  getting  from  one  place 
to  another. 

But  what  a  transformation  when  the  bird  has  shaken 
off  the  almost  stupefying  influence  of  the  earth,  and,  like 
a  ship  leaving  the  sluggish  estuary  of  some  river  and 
quivering  to  a  responsive  life  in  the  wind  and  tide  of 
the  open  sea,  climbs  to  a  more  buoyant  atmosphere  ! 
Between  stalking  and  flying  the  heron  rises  from  a  Daily 
Telegraph  prose  to  the  epic,  but  the  difference  between 
the  buzzard's  upper  and  lower  flights  is  still  more 
sharply  accentuated.  The  peregrine's  flight  (and  I  have 
seen  it  at  its  best)  is  notable  for  speed,  power,  balance 
and  command  ;  but  the  buzzard's  style  is  less  dominating. 
The  bird  gives  itself  to  the  air  in  majestic  surrender,  and 
the  languors  of  its  earth-bound  course  are  translated 
into  a  solemnity  of  motion  and  stateliness  of  carriage 
which  seem  to  dignify  the  whole  landscape.  It  (birds 
are  not  neuters,  but  to  say  he  or  she — who  is  two  inches 
larger  than  the  male — is  an  awkwardness)  ascends  the 


24        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

sky  in  great  spiral  curves,  sweeping  outwards  from  the 
loop  in  long  crescentic  lines  and  exposing  the  under 
surface  of  the  wings  and  body  when  the  circles  are  made, 
and  the  delicate  silver  marginations  of  the  brown  feathers 
when  the  back  is  slanted  towards  you. 

It  appears  a  very  slow  flight,  but  the  continuity  of 
rounded  design  in  the  ascent  makes  the  speed  deceptive, 
and  in  a  minute  or  two  the  bird  is  a  speck  in  the  sky. 
As  the  bird  climbs  the  sky,  its  pinions  are  expanded 
quite  motionless,  and  the  piloting,  both  in  a  strong  wind 
and  a  light  breeze,  though  preferably  the  former,  appears 
to  be  done  by  the  swinging  of  the  body  and  deflecting 
of  the  fanned  tail,  whose  twelve  transverse  bars  are 
conspicuous  at  not  too  far  a  distance.  When  the  grand 
fellow  is  some  way  up  there  is  no  flapping  of  the  wings, 
which  serve  it  in  immobility  better  than  our  legs  do  us, 
running  over  the  solid  earth.  Until  the  bird  outranges 
the  detailed  visibility  of  a  field  glass,  it  is  quite  easy  to 
test  this,  the  primary  quills  overlapping  and  shutting 
out  the  sky  when  the  wings  are  moved.  As  Darwin  says, 
in  The  Voyage  of  the  Beagle,  when  he  was  watching  condors 
soaring  over  Lima  : 

"  I  intently  watched  the  outlines  of  the  separate  and  terminal 
feathers  of  the  wings  :  if  there  had  been  the  least  vibratory  move- 
ment these  would  have  blended  together,  but  they  were  seen 
distinct  against  the  blue  sky." 

The  same  applies  to  our  buzzard. 

If  one  lies  on  one's  back  and  watches  these  great  birds, 
who  have  learned  the  secret  of  travelling  the  air  without 
a  stir,  tracing  out  their  smooth  patterns  upon  the  vault 
of  heaven  directly  above  one,  they  exercise  an  emotional 
appeal  which  is  a  medicine  for  us  living  in  these  gloomy 
and  turbulent  days.  They  seem  to  impress  not  only 
a  consolation  and  peace  upon  the  mind,  but  a  confidence 
in  the  stability  and  eternal  fitness  of  the  universe,  a 
sense  of  its  breadth  and  grandeur  and  permanence 
beyond  all  transient  phenomena,  and  to  open  the  spiritual 
ear  to  the  "  onward  advancing  melody,"  as  Lotze  called 
it,  of  the  whole  of  creation.  Our  western  world  may 
crack  and  even  be  shattered,  but  the  cosmos  still  goes  on. 


THE   COAST  OF  SOUTH  WALES        25 

Yet  birds  of  this  splendour  of  motion,  seeming  as  they 
rise  higher  and  higher  to  be  emblems  of  lofty  thought 
and  proud  imagination,  are  known  among  men  as 
"  vermin."  I  have  no  doubt  at  all  that  these  gyrations 
were  for  pure  enjoyment  (which  in  nature  is  almost 
invariably  expressed  in  what  is  to  us  as  artistic  form), 
and  that  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  business. 

When  the  three  of  them  were  floating  the  ether  in 
company,  they  used  to  toy  with  one  another,  dashing 
down  and  swerving  off  just  before  colliding,  and  then 
soaring  upwards  to  renew  the  sport.  In  this  recreation 
they  cut  all  manner  of  intricate  designs  in  the  air,  in 
a  beautiful  combination  of  strength  and  lightness.  They 
were  frequently  pursued  and  bullied  by  other  birds, 
particularly  crows  and  rooks,  and  you  would  see  one  of 
them  flying  off  with  a  black  horde  at  his  heels,  like  a 
potentate  attended  by  pages.  But  I  failed  to  see  any 
animosity  or  fear  in  these  attacks  :  it  was  Elisha  and  the 
urchins.  But  if  the  buzzard  cursed,  he  did  not  smite 
his  persecutors.  I  once  saw  a  meddlesome  rook  begin 
harrying  and  hustling  with  a  fine,  showy,  St.  George- 
and-the-Dragon  air,  dashing  down  like  a  thrown  spear 
at  the  back  of  the  buzzard  and  stopping  dead  six  feet 
above  it,  to  sail  away  and  play  a  discreet  David  once 
again.  Then  I  received  a  token  of  the  solidarity  of  the 
rook  tribe,  for  three  other  rooks  turned  up  from  nowhere, 
and  the  tactics  of  the  original  aggressor  at  once  changed. 
He  plunged  down  upon  the  poor  buzzard  with  so 
impetuous  a  rush,  turning  at  the  last  moment  to  flick 
him  with  his  wing,  that  he  completely  upset  the  buzzard's 
balance,  who  turned  a  complete  somersault  and  dropped 
about  thirty  feet.  A  pair  of  crows  (most  uxorious  of 
birds),  too,  used  to  drive  down  upon  the  buzzards  with 
depressed  wings  or  hang  above  them  with  their  legs 
dangling,  and  feinting  and  standing,  or  rather  flying, 
on  guard  with  a  vastly  impressive  parade  of  martial 
prowess.  The  buzzards  only  glided  aside  to  avoid  the 
swoops,  and  I  never  saw  these  Christian  birds  make 
the  smallest  attempt  at  retaliation  or  self-defence. 
Either  the  black  air- Arabs  got  tired  of  the  sport  or  the 
victim  of  their  horseplay  was  driven  off  the  field.  I 


26        BIRDS  OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

saw  a  raven  treated  in  the  same  way  and  with  the  same 
results.  It  was  only  on  these  uncomfortable  occasions 
that  I  heard  the  "  mewing  "  of  the  buzzards — wheewur, 
wheewur — a  complaining,  drawled,  high-pitched  and  melan- 
choly cry. 

One  thing  I  found  they  did  which  I  have  not  seen  re- 
corded in  any  of  the  scanty  accounts  of  the  bird  I  have 
seen  ; l  they  hover  almost  as  brilliantly  as  the  kestrel  does. 
One  watches  them  floating  downwind  in  their  tranquil 
way  and  then  curling  round  into  it.  There  is  a  per- 
ceptible stiffening  of  the  whole  body,  the  wings  are  slightly 
elevated  above  the  body's  level  and  the  primaries  tilted 
up  and  round.  There  they  remained  upwind,  with  scarce 
a  flicker  of  the  wings  visible  to  the  naked  eye,  and  as 
though  suspended  by  invisible  wires.  Then,  after  a 
short  or  a  long  period,  the  tension  was  relaxed,  and  the 
birds  went  downwind  again  to  hover  in  a  different  place, 
or,  with  the  wings  half-open,  dropped  like  a  stone  to  the 
ground.  Buzzards  fly,  but  they  do  not  hover  for  fun, 
and  this  characteristic  which  I  observed  every  day  is 
evidence  in  itself  that  their  food  is  similar  to  the 
kestrel's. 

But  the  most  striking  feature  of  the  life  of  the  buzzard 
is  its  intimate  relationship  with  the  landscape,  for  in 
mid-air  they  seem  to  articulate  the  moors,  the  sea,  the 
bluffs  and  promontories,  to  enlarge  and  ennoble  the 
whole  prospect,  a  kind  of  nucleus  to  a  wide  magnificence  of 
outline.  When  they  are  out  of  the  sky  it  appears  to 
reach  down  lower  and  to  enclose  one  more  narrowly, 
while  land  and  sea  seem  dwarfed  and  emptied,  as 
though  a  fine  headpiece  to  the  page  of  an  old  book  had 
been  rubbed  away.  There  was  a  headland  forming  the 
horn  to  a  bay  close  to  where  I  was  living,  and  running 
a  long  way  out  to  sea.  All  of  it  but  the  point  was  a 
broad-backed,  barren  moor  with  cromlechs  and  hut 
circles  upon  it,  looking  like  the  vertical  plates  on  the 

1  Mr.  Arthur  Brook's  The  Buzzard  at  Home  (Witherby,  3s.  6d. 
net)  is  the  most  recent  and  the  best  I  know.  It  is  a  vivid  and 
intimate  account  (gathered  at  considerable  personal  risk  on  a 
precipitous  cliff)  of  the  buzzard's  domestic  life,  and  contains  a 
number  of  remarkable  photographs. 


THE  COAST  OF   SOUTH   WALES        27 

hide  of  some  huge  Jurassic  Stegosaur,  the  rock  mass 
at  the  extremity  being  the  heavily  armoured  snout  and 
skull  of  the  monster.  Wheatears,  jackdaws  and  buzzards 
were  its  only  inhabitants,  but  the  delicacy  of  the  first 
and  the  jauntiness  of  the  second,  dashing  low  and 
parallel  with  the  ground  full  speed  at  the  stone  walls 
bounding  the  edges  of  the  cliffs,  and  shooting  perpen- 
dicularly upwards  like  arrows  with  their  depressed  wings 
for  the  barbs  when  the  wind  caught  them  full  face,  were 
a  relief  and  a  contrast  to  its  stern  and  sombre  wildness. 
But  the  buzzards,  wheeling  on  calm  wings  above  it, 
expressed  it  to  perfection  and  gave  its  ageless  bulk  a 
life  and  meaning  it  lacked  without  them.  And  they 
handed  on  the  tradition  of  an  older  life  that  has  passed 
away,  for  even  as  I  gazed  upon  them,  so  did  the  Neolithic 
men  who  have  left  their  ancient  memorials  on  the  moor. 


CHAPTER   II 
THE     FLATS 


THE  north  and  north-east  coast  of  Norfolk  is  like 
a  padded  shoulder  thrust  out  into  the  sea  to 
beguile  many  a  wind-worn,  feathered  navigator,  blown 
out  of  its  course,  to  strike  sail  and  rest  upon  it.  Norfolk, 
Cockaigne  of  the  collector,  glory  of  gunners,  is  my 
native  place,  but  to  pay  a  filial  visit  was  not  the  reason 
which  took  me  to  the  mud  flats  and  saltings  of  the  coast 
between  Cromer  and  Hunstanton  in  the  autumn,  for 
the  dwellers  therein  are  a  rude  people  and  inhospitable 
alike  to  bird  and  traveller. 

The  flats  themselves  cover  an  immense  district,  and 
though  partly  marsh  and  partly  mud,  and  varied  with 
broad  sandy  expanses,  low  turf  walls  running  seawards, 
sandhills  tufted  with  coarse  marram-grass,  saltings  car- 
peted with  the  fleshy,  glaucous  foliage  of  sea-aster,  sam- 
phire, sea-lavender,  and  sea-purslane,  rushy  pools  and 
narrow  streams,  present  a  uniform  stretch  indescribable 
both  in  feature  and  beauty.  On  the  plain  there  is  nothing 
between  you  and  the  horizon  ;  earth  and  sky  seem  inter- 
changeable, and  so  boundless  is  the  adventure  of  the 
mind  that  you  might  as  well  be  walking  upon  the  one 
as  the  other.  The  business  of  this  water-wedded  land 
is  other  than  to  rear  a  multiformity  of  shapes  and 
contours  for  eyes  to  climb  and  wind  among ;  it  becomes 
what  the  white  sheet  is  to  the  film  camera,  a  surface 
for  colours  to  come  tumbling  out  of  the  paint-box  and 
run  and  play  and  wheel  upon  like  schoolboys  out  of 
class.  Come  unto  these  yellow  sands  and  there  take  hands. 

I  remember  one  evening  on  the  flats,  washed  in  a  clear, 
mirage-like  transparency — nothing  on  land,  sea  or  sky 
was  thick  or  muddy — so  that  the  effect  was  that  of  a 

28 


THE  FLATS  29 

wideawake  dream,  an  other-worldliness  without  a  hint 
of  vagueness,  strange  yet  real.  Algae  were  pinkish-red 
and  grass  lit  by  golden  brown  ;  the  pools  were  a  deep 
cobalt,  and  in  the  distance  were  strips  of  pale  purple, 
blue,  and  softest  roseate,  while  over  all  the  sky  was 
streaked,  ravelled,  and  combed  with  white  on  a  blue 
ground.  When  the  sun  set,  the  seaweed  on  the  slime 
glittered  a  metallic  emerald,  the  pools  glowed  an  intense 
violet,  and  the  sun  itself  a  molten  gold. 

Chromatic  dramas  of  this  kind  were  always  performing 
— there  were  several  houses  a  day — but  one  in  particular 
was  impressed  upon  me.  I  was  on  the  shore  at  Holkham, 
two  miles  from  Wells-next-the-Sea.  Just  beyond  the 
sandhills  there  is  a  long  and  thin  crescentic  line  of  pines, 
in  front  of  which  "  the  lone  and  level  sands  stretch  far 
away."  If  the  traveller  stands  in  the  middle  of  this 
smooth  floor  on  a  fine  day  he  will  seem  to  be  surveying 
the  landscape  of  a  different  planet,  so  singular  is  the 
effect  of  the  great  semi-circular  disc  of  buff  and  yellow 
sand,  broidered  on  one  side  by  the  ultramarine  of  the 
sea,  intense  as  the  blue  on  the  Virgin's  robe  in  an  old 
Italian  picture,  and  on  the  other  by  the  darkest  green 
of  the  pines.  The  effect  was  not  only  singular,  but 
estranging,  shrinking  the  human  personality  beneath 
even  the  sandhoppers,  an  alien  in  an  unpeopled  and 
inhospitable  wilderness. 

The  population  of  these  flats  is  chiefly  gulls  and  wading 
birds.  On  first  acquaintance  with  the  latter  one  feels 
no  more  desire  to  discriminate  between  them  than  to 
count  the  separate  leaves  of  a  tree.  It  is  by  no  means 
easy,  for  they  are  greatly  persecuted,  most  of  them  of 
an  exceeding  shyness  and  of  a  strong  family  likeness, 
nor  is  there  any  cover  by  which  to  approach  them.  In 
colour,  too,  they  are  much  alike,  especially  after  the 
moult,  and  to  identify,  to  particularize  these  grey,  fawn 
and  silvery  forms,  drifting,  gliding  and  whirling  over 
the  waste  in  the  pearly  light  bathing  all  the  land,  like 
shadows  in  a  dream,  seems  somewhat  to  sacrifice  the 
general,  harmonious  impression,  to  drag  them  out  of 
an  environment  into  which  they  so  perfectly  melt. 
Indeed,  the  wide  desolation  of  the  flats  seems  to  endow 


30        BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

these  waders  with  a  new  power  of  living  among  them, 
as  other  birds  do  in  the  air,  so  that  they  belong  to 
another  dimension,  which  is  aerial  and  yet  of  the  earth. 
They  seem  not  so  much  to  run  over  the  ground  as  to 
fly  with  closed  wings,  as  if  struck  and  propelled  by 
wandering  breezes.  Thus,  concrete  objects  become  shift- 
ing and  liquid  and  inseparable,  and  to  their  wavering 
the  wonderfully  subtle  and  evanescent  colouring  of  the 
flats  contributes — appearing  as  they  do  on  a  fine  day 
opalescent,  from  which  one  might  pick  out  pinkish- 
greys  running  into  blues,  making  roseate  mauves,  again 
running  into  browns,  and  again  into  emerald  and  tur- 
quoise. This  soft  interblending  matches  the  flights  of 
the  birds  crossing  and  circling  one  another's  tracks, 
while  through  all  are  heard  their  plaintive,  wild,  and 
musical  cries,  so  fine  and  remote  as  to  seem  themselves 
part  of  colour  and  light. 

This  would  have  been  all  very  well  for  an  artist,  but 
your  naturalist  who  cannot  put  a  name  to  what  he  sees 
is  like  the  artist  who  cannot  put  a  meaning  to  it. 
Ringed  plover,  the  charming  little  brown  bird  with  a 
black  gorget  on  his  white  breast,  was  the  most  numerous 
species,  outnumbering  the  too  sparse  flocks  of  dunlin 
(called  "  stints  "  here  by  the  gunners),  and  soon  identified 
by  the  broad  splash  of  black  over  the  lower  breast. 
Curlew,  too,  were  thinly  distributed,  and  I  saw  but 
few  pigmy  curlew  (called  clumsily  in  the  books  "curlew 
sandpiper "),  the  duodecimo  edition,  so  to  speak,  of 
the  curlew.  I  once  had  the  good  fortune  to  see  a  party 
of  fifty  or  sixty  redshank  dipping  over  the  flats,  but 
greenshank — a  very  shapely  bird,  readily  distinguishable 
from  redshank,  not  so  much  by  the  muddy  olive  of 
the  legs  hardly  to  be  picked  out  from  the  mud,  but  by 
their  three  inches  larger  size,  deeper  and  rounder  call, 
conspicuous  white  rump,  and  more  sedate  and  dignified 
ways — were  much  rarer. 

Sometimes,  if  one  peers  over  the  top  of  a  turf  bank, 
one  may  see  a  small  flock  of  grey  plover  feeding  on  the 
mud.  In  build  they  recall  the  shape  of  their  larger 
cousins,  the  stone-curlew,  or  "  thick-knee,"  being  com- 
pact, sturdy,  and  somewhat  thickset.  By  the  autumn, 


THE  FLATS  31 

the  black  of  the  underparts  has  become  white,  and  the 
dark  mottled  browns  of  the  upper  an  ashy  grey,  so  that 
the  birds  have  turned  ghostly  to  meet  the  season  of  mists. 
They  are — pity  for  them — remarkably  tame,  and  are 
reluctant  to  take  their  graceful,  easy  flight,  very  different 
from  the  impetuous  dashes  of  redshank  and  sanderling, 
quickly  alighting  again.  Altogether  their  disposition  is 
calmer  and  more  leisurely  than  that  of  other  shore  birds, 
and  they  stride  over  the  mud  with  a  certain  sedateness 
quite  unlike  the  fanciful,  irregular  runs,  so  characteristic 
of  the  smaller  waders.  They  have  a  delightful  habit  of 
pointing  as  they  feed,  the  body  being  slightly  tilted 
forward  and  the  neck  thrust  out  on  a  level  with  the 
back,  and  there  they  stand  in  an  attitude  of  fixed  atten- 
tion, as  though  musing  on  the  fate  of  the  doomed 
crustacean  before  they  gobble  him  up. 

The  most  abundant  of  the  smaller  birds,  next  to  the 
ringed  plover,  were  sanderling,  "  easily  recognizable," 
say  the  books,  "  easily  recognizable "  by  the  absence 
of  the  hind-toe.  If,  however,  a  professional  ornithologist 
can  mark  the  absence  of  a  pedal  appendage  an  inch  long 
from  the  foot  of  a  bird  smaller  than  a  song-thrush  a 
long  way  off,  on  a  grey  expanse  of  mud  flat,  I  cannot, 
and  preferred  to  distinguish  my  sanderling  by  the 
blackish  mottlings  of  the  back  (pearl-grey  hi  winter), 
the  light  stippled  reddish-brown  (lost  in  winter)  of  the 
upper  breast,  and  the  luminous  white  of  the  underparts. 
Small  bands  of  knots  (a  circumpolar  species),  Cnut's 
table  bird  according  to  Michael  Drayton,  and  distin- 
guishable by  a  strong  rufous  blush  over  the  throat  and 
breast  (also  lost  in  winter),  and  a  rather  stockish  build, 
roamed  the  flats,  and  turnstones  (Norvice,  "  tangle- 
picker,"  and  very  blurred  in  colouring  after  the  moult), 
were  in  more  or  less  the  same  numbers.  They  are  mining 
specialists  in  the  small  crustaceans  lying  under  stones, 
and  they  will  (it  is  said)  often  co-operate  to  heave  them 
over  with  their  bills.1  Mr.  Boraston's  Birds  by  land 
and  Sea  wonders  how  it  is  that  the  other  Limicolce  who 
see  the  turnstones  trotting  industriously  to  and  fro  on 

1  See  a  delightful  account  of  co-operation  among  turnstones 
in  vol.  v  (pp.  52-55)  of  Morris's  British  Birds. 


32         BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

orange  legs  in  conspicuously  pied  and  tortoiseshell 
livery,  investigating  the  seaweed  and  turning  the  pebbles 
over,  do  not  go  and  do  likewise.  The  reason,  perhaps,  is 
that  the  .flats  so  swarm  with  minute  amphipod  and 
mollusc  life  that  there  is  no  serious  competition  or  need 
to  take  the  bread  out  of  the  turnstone's  mouth.  Last 
of  all  comes  the  little  stint,  a  demure  elf  of  a  bird  no 
bigger  than  a  chaffinch,  who  seemed  to  me  more  like 
a  miniature  sanderling  than  dunlin,  as  he  is  commonly 
called.  Very  self-possessed  was  he  (there  were  only  a 
few)  in  his  six-inch  body,  cloaked  in  ashy-brown,  with 
the  miles  of  lone,  level,  immemorial  wastes  around  him. 
I  saw  no  golden  plover,  nor  oyster-catchers,  supposed  to 
frequent  the  coast  in  large  numbers. 

At  first  it  seemed  to  me  that  these  different  species 
of  shore  bird,  though  on  the  best  of  terms,  did  not  mix 
to  any  great  extent.  But  this  was  a  false  impression, 
and  a  marked  characteristic  of  the  waders  is  their  gentle 
sociability.  Sanderling  and  ringed  plover  were  con- 
stantly together,  and  twice  I  saw  little  stint  among  them. 
Curlew  fed  both  with  greenshank  and  redshank,  and 
turnstones  associated  with  dunlin  and  sanderling.  Nor 
was  it  altogether  foolish  to  feel  pleasure  at  my  correction, 
since  the  uniformity  of  habit,  residence,  shape,  colour, 
language,  and  character  makes  the  birds  a  single  com- 
munity, and  any  tendency  to  exclusiveness  would  have 
marred  the  fitness  of  things.  Birds  were  the  first  animals 
to  develop  sympathy,  and  here  it  was  pictured  in  the 
art  of  nature  as  well  as  represented  in  character. 

But  this  by  no  means  implies  the  capitalist's  nightmare 
of  Socialism,  and  I  came  to  see  that  differentiations  in 
character  were  none  the  less  present  for  being  subtle 
and  hard  to  unravel.  Apart  from  the  marked  person- 
alities of  curlew,  dunlin,  and  turnstone,  for  instance,  the 
ringed  plover  draws  away  quite  definitely,  if  not  too 
far,  from  the  other  members  of  the  wading  family  to 
introduce  an  alien  presence.  The  differences  of  physical 
type  (shorter  bill  and  dumpier  body)  are  but  the  externals. 
Not  only  is  he  the  least  shy  of  the  group,  and  his  wistful 
toolee,  toolee,  one  of  the  most  expressive  and  frequent 
cries,  but  his  actions  on  the  ground  are  not  the  same 


THE   FLATS  33 

as  those  of  sanderling,  dunlin,  and  stint.  He  has  a 
way  of  making  a  swift  dash  along  the  flat,  and  then 
standing  stock  still,  with  head  and  neck  hunched  in  on 
his  shoulders.  Then  he  will  begin  to  peck  away  at  the 
sandhoppers,  making  another  little  run  and  stop  again 
to  reflect.  Meanwhile,  the  sanderling,  moving  on  an 
evener  and  less  thoughtful  disposition,  is  dibbling  away 
here  and  there  and  everywhere,  stopping  not  for  spiritual 
food,  but  some  choicer  morsel  which  has  caught  his 
roving  eye.  Even  from  these  trivial  indications  we  can 
guess  that  the  little  plover  is  a  shade  more  independent  and 
original  in  temper,  a  shade  more  likely  to  contain  within 
his  loins  the  destinies  of  a  mightier  race  in  the  future. 

But  I  saw  something  much  more  interesting  than  this 
charming  habit  of  a  species,  namely  a  highly  developed 
variant  of  a  single  individual  of  it.  On  the  further  side 
from  me  of  the  creek  dividing  the  mud  flats  at  Blakeney 
was  a  party  of  twenty-three  of  the  little  plovers  ;  on 
the  hither  two  birds  alone,  one  a  ringed  plover,  the 
other  (it  was,  I  think,  a  young  bird)  showing  the  white 
and  warm  buff  and  slightly  decurved  bill  of  the  pigmy 
curlew.  The  pair  moved  about  the  mud  feeding,  and 
when  they  got  at  all  separated  one  of  them  would  run 
up  to  the  other,  and  they  would  stand  for  a  time 
motionless  and  close  together.  Then  the  plover  (called 
sandlark  here)  ceased  feeding  and  stood  meditating, 
while  the  little  curlew  went  on  with  his  meal.  When  the 
latter  had  moved  some  distance,  the  plover  took  his 
elegant  little  run  and  resumed  his  cogitations  close  to 
— as  my  thick  wits  at  last  discovered — his  comrade. 
All  of  a  sudden  the  plovers  on  the  other  side  of  the  creek 
took  flight,  but  little  curlew  and  little  plover  remained 
behind,  quite  unconcerned  and  happy  in  one  another's 
company.  It  was  a  rare  experience  to  be  admitted  into 
the  secret  of  this  intimacy,  as  it  was  disquieting  to  reflect 
that  any  day  it  may  be  ruptured,  and  one  or  both  of 
these  avian  friends  disappear  into  the  bag  of  the  gunner. 
Mr.  Hudson,  I  remember,  relates  a  similar  comradeship 
between  a  blackbird  and  a  pheasant,  Romanes  between 
a  widgeon  and  a  peacock,  and  Montagu  in  the  Supplement 
to  his  Dictionary  between  a  pointer  and  a  Chinese  goose. 

3 


34        BIRDS  OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

The  fact  is  that  if  we  believe  in  animal  love  we  must 
also  believe  in  animal  friendship.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
"  love "  is  simply  a  hyperbole  for  the  reproductive 
instinct,  then  friendship  is  one  for  the  herd  instinct. 
The  former  theory,  however,  is  now  scientifically  unten- 
able. "It  is  hardly  necessary,"  write  the  authors  of 
the  Evolution  of  Sex, 

"  to  argue  seriously  in  support  of  the  thesis  that  love — in  the  sense 
of  sexual  sympathy,  psychical  as  well  as  physical — exists  among 
animals  in  many  degrees  of  evolution.  .  .  .  The  fact  to  be  insisted 
upon  is  this,  that  the  vague  sexual  attraction  of  the  lowest  organisms 
has  been  evolved  into  a  definite  reproductive  impulse,  into  a  desire 
often  predominating  over  even  that  of  self-preservation ;  that 
this  again,  enhanced  by  more  and  more  subtle  psychical  additions, 
passes  by  a  gentle  gradient  into  the  love  of  the  highest  animals 
and  of  the  average  human  individual." 

The  evolution  of  love,  said  Henry  Drummond,  is  pure 
science.  Sexual  love,  also,  survives  the  nuptial  season 
in  some  species,  and  Mr.  Julian  Huxley  has  established 
the  remarkable  fact  that  it  precedes  it  as  well.  Great 
crested  grebes  engage  in  a  lengthy  period  of  courtship 
before  sexual  intercourse,  which  is  coeval  with  nest- 
building,  takes  place. 

But  love,  removed  from  its  purely  sexual  context, 
is  allied  to  friendship.  If,  again,  sexual  differentiation 
is  as  old  as  the  first  organisms,  the  social  relation  is  not 
much  younger,  for  the  former  began  with  the  Infusorian 
Volvox,  the  latter  one  stage  higher,  when  one-celled 
animals  began  colony-making.  The  one  has  had  almost 
as  much  time  to  evolve  into  friendship  as  the  other  into 
love.  Therefore  I  feel  that  Mr.  Hudson  is  on  sound 
scientific  lines  when  he  writes  :  "  My  conviction  is  that 
all  animals  distinctly  see  in  those  of  other  species  living, 
sentient,  intelligent  beings  like  themselves,  and  that 
when  birds  and  mammals  meet  together  they  take  pleasure 
in  the  consciousness  of  one  another's  presence,  in  spite 
of  the  enormous  differences  in  size,  voice,  and  habits." 

Bird-friendships  are  no  doubt  common  in  bird-life, 
and  would  be  more  frequently  noted,  if  the  art  or  science 
of  sympathetic  observation  were  not  in  its  infancy. 
Its  day  will  come,  and  the  naturalist  who  "  bends  to 


THE  FLATS  35 

himself  a  joy "  be  replaced  by  the  naturalist  who 
"  kisses  the  joy  as  it  flies."  But  will  it  come  too  late  ? 
Such  friendships  are  obviously  more  interesting  than 
the  commensalism  that  exists  between  the  crocodile  and 
the  spur-winged  plover,  which  is  based  on  mutual  self- 
interest,  though  a  kindly  supererogatory  sentiment  may 
develop  from  it.  How  little  we  know  of  the  psychology 
of  bird-life  !  We  know  a  great  deal  about  the  anatomy  of 
birds — the  principles  of  classification  and  distribution  and 
the  rest  of  it ;  of  their  lives  or  their  relation  to  one  another, 
to  nature,  and  to  ourselves,  we  know  next  to  nothing.1 

The  appearance  of  these  waders  out  upon  the  inscrut- 
able marshes  is  so  vanishing,  and  their  wild,  bubbling, 
seemingly  bodiless  cries,  often  beautifully  inflected,  are 
so  rhythmical,  that  it  is  natural  to  think  of  them  as 
always  in  motion,  and  their  motions  themselves  as  figures 
in  a  dance. 

There  is  a  constant  procession  of  thin  shapes  flashing 
across  the  vision,  and  little  parties  of  birds  dash  over  the 
ground  like  sudden  inspirations  too  elusive  to  be  retained 
— sanderling,  ringed  plover,  redshank,  whose  plaintive, 
musical  tuhuhu  tuhuhu — the  most  characteristic  among 
their  several  cries — is  like  the  voice  of  some  intangible, 
passing  figure  seen  in  dream.  Even  the  bathing  of  these 
waders  has  a  ceremonious  grace,  and  being  nymphs  as 
much  of  the  water  as  the  land,  they  flirt  little  showers 
over  their  backs  and  curtsey  their  breasts  into  the 
water  as  though  they  glided  from  one  device  in  the  formal 
round  to  another.  Once  I  watched  a  party  of  redshank 
bathing  in  a  strip  of  pool,  and  suddenly  one  of  them  was 
taken  with  a  frenzy  of  high  spirits.  Trailing  feet,  he 
hurled  himself  from  one  end  to  the  other  and  back  again, 
clapping  his  beautiful  angular  wings  over  his  back  and 

1  That  sound  naturalist,  Alfred  W.  Rees,  who  died  a  few  years 
ago,  writes  in  one  of  his  books  :  "  In  those  rare,  brief  intervals 
of  outdoor  study  when,  to  my  surprise  and  delight,  I  have  caught 
a  glimpse  of  what,  for  want  of  a  better  phrase,  might  be  termed 
the  humanity  of  Nature,  I  have  not  merely  imagined,  but  have 
felt  sure,  that  many  of  the  finest  feelings  of  man — pity,  sympathy, 
devotion,  unselfish  comradeship — are  shared  in  no  small  measure 
by  creatures  considered  to  be  far  beneath  our  plane  of  life." 


36        BIRDS    OF   THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

upon  the  water.  Flight  therefore  is  the  supreme  expres- 
sion of  the  waders,  the  gathered  up  form  of  their  restless 
movements  on  land,  as  a  collocation  of  phrases,  seeking 
a  true  outlet  for  the  increasing  emotion  that  urges  them, 
finally  runs  into  a  metrical  design. 

Dunlin  are  the  most  striking  of  all  the  waders  to 
watch  in  the  air,  for  they  move  with  that  single  and 
unanimous  consciousness  which,  though  it  is  confined 
to  but  a  few  land  species — starlings,  wood-pigeons 
(rarely),  daws  (in  play),  and  skylarks  (occasionally  in 
the  winter) — seems  to  endow  them,  and  perhaps  does, 
with  a  sense,  a  faculty  unknown  to  us.  In  assuming 
that  animals  possess  only  the  rudiments  of  our  capaci- 
ties, we  are  inclined  to  overlook  the  fact  that  they  may 
possess  developed  ones  of  which  we  have  only  the  fag-ends. 

The  flight  of  a  cloud  of  dunlin  is  more  rapid  than 
that  of  starlings,  and  they  appear  to  confine  themselves 
more  strictly  to  a  limited  area.  When  they  fly  thus, 
as  though  a  definite  space  for  manoeuvres  were  pegged 
out  for  them,  their  dancing  patterns  in  the  air,  brilliant 
turns  and  dashes,  and  the  streaks  of  silver  appearing 
simultaneously  when  they  expose  their  white  under- 
parts,  make  the  spectacle  more  beautiful  than  anything 
that  starlings  can  give  us.  Finally,  they  will  ravel  out 
into  a  single  line,  and,  with  a  lovely  crescentic  sweep, 
come  to  rest.  But  all  the  waders  fly  more  or  less  in  a 
band,  and  make  a  unified,  perfect  lyric  of  it.  Many  of 
them  keep  only  a  few  inches  above  the  ground,  and 
their  numerous  curves  and  oscillations  are  performed 
with  extraordinary  dexterity  on  their  sharply  turned 
and  pointed  wings. 

The  redshank,  too,  has  an  individual  action  of  the 
utmost  beauty,  throwing  up  the  wings  into  an  arch 
and  displaying  the  white  undersides  just  before  alighting. 
But  the  ringed  plover,  always  going  just  one  better, 
repeats  this  action  before  taking  flight,  as  well  as  before 
settling.  It  is  curious  to  watch  them  thus  arching  their 
wings  as  a  prelude  to  flight,  in  the  same  way  as  a  diver 
raises  his  arms  before  the  plunge.  There  is  something 
deliberate  and  formal  in  it — like  taking  off  one's  hat 
before  entering  a  church.  It  is  a  kind  of  propitiatory 


THE  FLATS  37 

gesture,  as  if  the  bird  invoked  the  ether  to  bear  him 
lightly  on  its  bosom. 

I  have  seen  the  velvet  scoter  in  East  Anglia,  a  diving 
duck  handsomer  than  its  far  more  numerous  relative, 
the  common  scoter,  the  white  speculum  giving  a  fine 
glossiness  and  depth  to  the  jet-black  of  the  rest  of  the 
plumage,  perform  the  same  action.  The  gesture  is  made 
before  diving,  and  as  the  bird  often  remains  under 
water  for  nearly  three  minutes  and  reappears  a  hundred 
yards  away,  it  is  appropriate  that  he  should,  so  to  speak, 
preface  his  achievement.  But  it  seems  more  than  that. 
The  wings  are  lifted  and  arched  as  though  in  invocation 
to  the  nymphs  of  his  second  element,  and  the  pose  carries 
the  mind  back  to  some  ancient  fresco  in  which  a  country- 
man holds  out  in  his  extended  arms  a  sheaf  of  corn 
before  the  shrine  of  Demeter. 

Now  and  then  one  would  catch  one  of  the  waders 
flying  by  itself,  usually  a  little  stint,  drawing  mazes  upon 
the  air  almost  as  masterfully  as  the  snipe,  in  its  irregular 
twists  and  doublings.  But  the  flight  of  most  of  the  waders 
is  a  social  function,  and  there  is  yet  another  glory  in 
the  sanderling's  flight,  for  as  they  pass  through  the  air 
they  swing  their  bodies  from  side  to  side,  now  displaying 
the  greyish  umber  of  the  back  and  wings,  now  the  pure 
silver  of  the  underparts.  Thus  there  is  a  double 
harmony  in  the  process  of  flight,  the  rhythm  of  the 
wing-beats  being  varied  and  interwoven  with  the  side- 
to-side  motion  of  the  body,  like  a  repeated  refrain  in  a 
poem  of  a  different  metre  from  it,  except  that  the  varia- 
tions are  telescoped  as  they  cannot  be  by  the  most  skilful 
metrical  technique.  Or  rather  the  flight  is  less  a  poem 
than  a  choric  song.  This  see-saw  action  is  peculiar  to 
all  the  small  waders,  though  sanderling,  and  particularly 
dunlin,  are  more  highly  specialized  in  it.  A  flock  will 
suddenly  be  completely  blotted  out  as  their  backs  turn 
towards  you,  reappearing  again  in  a  gleam  of  silver,  and 
once  again  becoming  invisible.  The  elusiveness  of  all 
these  small  pipers,  the  rapidity  of  their  flight,  and  the 
discipline  of  their  manoeuvres  over  the  desolate  plain, 
create  the  impression  that  they  are  not  birds  at  all, 
but  aerial  spirits  visible  in  a  silver  radiance  but  at 
moments  to  mortal  sight. 


38        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

I  doubt  whether  I  have  anything  like  compassed  the 
charm  of  these  shore  birds — so  shy,  so  volatile,  so  diffi- 
cult to  approach  and  distinguish,  and  yet  so  appealing 
that  to  slaughter  them  as  they  are  slaughtered  all  along 
the  coast  and  all  day  long  seems  as  abominable  as 
shooting  fairies.  Not  that  it  would  make  any  difference 
if  they  were.  There  yet  remains  their  shape,  their  poise 
on  their  slender  stilts,  balanced  by  the  length  of  the 
bill,  and  forming  a  singularly  accomplished  artistic 
design.  They  are  like  a  lily  or  a  daffodil  gathered  with 
its  whole  long  stem.  A  violet  is  lovely  of  itself,  but  it 
does  not  possess  the  satisfying  element  of  long  line.  The 
heron  and  stork  share  this  grace  of  line,  and  the  shore 
birds,  from  curlew  to  little  stint,  have  it  to  perfection, 
and  are  so  decorative  with  it  that  one  realizes  more  fully 
how  very  well  the  great  craftsmen  of  the  East  knew  what 
they  were  about. 

Then  there  is  the  romance  of  their  inaccessibility. 
We  can  climb  trees,  but  we  cannot  walk  on  mud  flats. 
Thirdly,  there  is  the  wonderful  pencilling  of  the  plumage. 
In  the  plane  of  form,  the  legs  are  of  the  frailest  compati- 
ble with  use,  and  body,  bill,  throat  and  general  shape 
follow  slender  lines  in  musical  conformity  with  them. 
In  the  plane  of  colour,  the  tones  of  the  delicate  centres 
and  margins  of  each  feather  merge  into  pale,  subdued 
browns  or  greys,  themselves  relieved  by  vivid  smears  of 
black,  white,  rufous  and  chestnut.  Without  disparag- 
ing other  birds,  these  waders  did  seem  to  me  to  represent 
the  most  essentially  perfect  bird-form  I  have  seen,  per- 
haps the  only  bird-form  that  would  look  well  out  of  its 
natural  surroundings.  That  is  saying  a  good  deal,  for 
birds  are  symbols  of  our  concepts  of  ideal  beauty,  and 
the  loveliest  flower  is  a  poor  thing  to  them.  Would  that 
I  might  have  been  a  disembodied  spirit  for  a  space,  to 
fly  invisible  among  them  and  witness  every  little  thing 
they  did,  even  the  flowering  of  every  wayward  thought 
and  caprice  in  the  great  sum  of  them  that  has  mounted 
with  every  falling  sun  ! 

It  is  intriguing  to  ask  whether  these  wading  birds  are 
in  any  way  conscious  of  their  own  or  their  neighbours' 
beauty.  In  a  way,  the  question  is  unanswerable,  for  we 


THE  FLATS  39 

cannot  see  far  into  the  recesses  of  the  bird-mind.  But 
it  is  capable,  perhaps,  of  a  qualified  solution,  partly  by 
particular  and  partly  by  general  application.  In  the 
first  place,  there  do  exist  certain  examples  of  aesthetic 
appreciation  among  animals.  The  bower  birds  make  a 
decorative  front -garden  to  their  homes ;  bees  visit 
flowers  not  only  for  their  scent,  but  their  colour,  and 
ForePs  experiments  show  that  they  return  to  objects  of 
the  same  colour  as  the  flowers  whose  nectar  they  collect ; 
moths  are  attracted  to  white  flowers  in  the  dusk  ;  magpies 
steal  bright  objects  ;  a  surprising  number  of  species  deco- 
rate their  nests  with  flowers,  and  so  on.  But  sexual 
selection  is  the  most  important  example,  so  important 
that  Herbert  Spencer  derived  the  whole  stimulus  of  the 
aesthetic  sense  from  the  sexual  emotions.  I  am  assuming 
that  Darwin's  theory  of  preferential  mating  stands 
proven — it  is  accepted  by  most  biologists — and  that 
whether  the  hen-bird's  interest  is  emotional,  or  aesthetic, 
or  sexual,  the  one  must  and  does  imply  an  infusion  of 
the  other  two.  The  male  on  his  part  displays  his 
plumage  to  the  best  aesthetic  advantage,  and  follows  a 
kind  of  informal,  rhythmical  design  in  his  dancing  and 
posturing.  A  certain  aesthetic  awareness  exists,  that  is 
to  say,  in  both  sexes,  and  its  selective  interplay  has  a 
high  survival  value. 

The  general  question  views  the  omnipresence  of  beauty 
in  nature  and  wonders  how  it  got  there.  For  natural 
beauty  is  the  normal  expression  of  natural  life  ;  ugliness 
we  only  find  in  a  very  rare  monstrosity  or  in  parasites, 
which  have  gone  to  the  bad.  "  The  pismire  and  the 
egg  of  the  wren,  each  is  equally  perfect,"  says  Whitman. 
"  The  halo  of  beauty,"  says  Professor  Thomson,  "  is  on 
every  free  individuality,"  and  he  quotes  Lotze  :  "To 
look  upon  beauty,  not  as  a  stranger  in  the  world  .  .  . 
not  as  a  casual  aspect  .  .  .  but  as  the  fortunate  revela- 
tion of  that  principle  which  permeates  all  reality  with 
its  living  activity."  The  ugly,  the  inharmonious,  the 
discordant  have  been  eliminated  as  unfit  in  the  struggle 
for  existence.  The  next  question  is  how  did  beauty 
arrive  ?  and  the  answer  is  by  that  complex  power  of 
differentiation  we  call  evolution.  At  one  period  in  the 


40        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

world's  history  beauty,  we  may  be  sure,  was  only  rudi- 
mentary and  potential ;  it  was  developed  from  humble 
beginnings,  just  as  the  idea  of  God  has  risen  from  fear 
and  utilitarianism  to  its  modern  nobility  in  the  evolution 
of  man.  "  There  is  a  grandeur,"  wrote  Darwin,  "  in 
this  view  of  life,  with  its  several  powers  having  been 
originally  breathed  by  the  Creator  into  a  few  forms, 
or  into  one,  and  that  while  this  planet  has  gone  circling 
on  according  to  the  fixed  law  of  gravity,  from  so  simple 
a  beginning,  endless  forms,  most  beautiful  and  most 
wonderful,  have  been  and  are  being  evolved."  Beauty 
was  in  fact  evolved  concurrently  with  psychological  and 
ethical  factors,  and  that  is  why  a  really  beautiful  thing 
is  at  the  same  time  good,  true,  and  individual.  If  Nature 
is  beautiful,  that  is  to  say,  there  is  a  religious  meaning  in  the 
evolutionary  process.  Art  is  religious,  says  Mr.  Glutton 
Brock,  "  because  it  makes  us  believe  in  the  goodness  of 
God  and  the  kindness  of  the  universe  He  has  made." 

The  animate  world  as  we  know  it  has,  then,  been 
evolved  from  an  infinite  number  of  variations,  and  these 
variations  originate  in  the  germ-cells,  which  are  not 
simple  protozoa,  but  "  unified  individualities  "  ;  which 
"  experiment  internally,  not  fortuitously,  but  artistically ; 
not  at  random,  nor  yet  inexorably,  not  purposefully, 
but  perhaps  purposively."  Change  or  evolution,  that 
is  to  say,  depends  upon  the  inborn  creative  power  of 
living  creatures,  and  variations  (which  we  might  just 
as  well  call  inspirations)  are  what  Professor  Thomson, 
with  insight,  calls  "  experiments  in  self-expression." 
Variation  is  a  progressive  series  of  experiments  in  ideas, 
manifested,  with  all  its  failures,  all  the  throwing  aside 
of  unfinished  drafts  which  we  call  the  elimination  of  the 
unfit,  by  the  growing  individuality  of  more  and  more 
complex  living  creatures,  in  that  conquest  of  mind  over 
matter,  and  the  freedom  of  personal  choice  harmoniously 
embodied  which  make  the  works  of  art.  Beauty,  that 
is  to  say,  is  not  only  the  actual,  but  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  this  process  ;  beauty  which  is  "  Nature's 
stamp  of  approval  on  harmonious  individuality."  In 
this  sense,  therefore,  we  can  surely  say  that  living  crea- 
tures take  a  hand  in  the  creation  of  their  own  beauty, 


THE  FLATS  41 

and  that  aesthetic  pleasure,  whether  unconscious  or  (in 
the  higher  animals)  dimly  conscious,  exists  throughout 
the  whole  of  the  animate  universe,  from  the  Foraminifera's 
instinctive  choice  of  the  right  materials  for  building 
their  shells  to  the  nuptial  display  of  the  Argus  pheasant. 
It  is  possible  to  believe  that  an  artistic  awareness  does 
exist  in  these  wading  birds,  if  unformulated  and  expressed 
in  their  actions,  rather  than  in  the  conception  of  an 
imaginative  kingdom  outside  their  own,  which  is  the 
prerogative  of  man. 

II 

I  am  tempted  to  make  a  digression  here.  The  flats 
round  Blakeney  are  the  property  or  rental  of  the  "  National 
Trust,"  but  shooting  "  for  food  "  is  permitted,  and  this, 
of  course,  drives  a  coach  and  four  through  the  law,  with 
the  collector  of  rare  birds  driving  it. 

But,  it  may  be  argued,  would  you  interfere  with  killing 
these  birds  for  food  altogether  ?  Certainly  not,  if  they 
were  needed  for  human  food.  There  is  no  such  necessity 
at  Blakeney,  and,  as  Mr.  Edmund  Selous  wisely  says, 
"  The  killing  of  any  being,  not  merely  of  any  human  being, 
can  only  really  be  justified  by  the  strength  of  the  reason  for 
doing  so,  i.e.  through  necessity."  He  adds  further  on  : — 

"  When  we  think  of  the  pain  which  is  often  inseparable  from  the 
act,  of  the  well-being  and  happiness,  the  affection,  the  tender- 
ness even — experto  crede — which,  by  it,  we  destroy,  and  of  the 
absence  of  all  crime  and  wickedness  in  those  non-human  lives 
thus  made  to  cease,  reason,  no  less  than  morality,  must  tell  us 
that  such  necessity  ought  by  no  means  to  be  lightly  admitted." 

The  gunning  tradition,  in  fact,  has  outlasted  its  usefulness, 
with  the  consequence  that  what  was  once  justified  as 
a  need  cannot,  when  it  involves  the  slaughter  of  harmless 
and  richly  endowed  relatives  of  our  own  (many  of  them 
no  bigger  than  thrushes  and  sparrows),  be  justified  as  an 
amusement.  A  use  has  degenerated  into  an  abuse  of 
our  power  over  creatures  endowed  with  our  own  warm 
blood,  but  not  with  our  developed  understanding  and 
capacity  to  take  care  of  ourselves.  "  They  that  have 
power  to  hurt  and  will  do  none  " — how  little  is  realized 


42         BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

the  scope  of  the  natural  historian,  that  his  business  is 
with  the  universe,  of  man  no  less  than  of  all  other 
animals,  and  that  the  fallings  from  grace  and  self- 
respect  of  the  one  are  no  less  his  concern  than  the 
destruction  of  the  others.  "  Lilies  that  fester  smell  far 
worse  than  weeds." 

Ill 

I  have  said  elsewhere  that  birds  in  masses  possess 
a  special  artistic  virtue,  and  the  flats  offer  peculiar 
advantages  for  so  seeing  them.  A  common  sight  were 
clusters  of  herring  gulls  about  a  ploughing  team  a  few 
hundred  yards  inland — a  shower  of  white  bird-marguerites 
resting  on  the  dark  furrows  or  bird-butterflies  fluttering 
in  the  very  steam  of  the  toiling  horses.  I  say  common, 
because  there  can  be  few  Englishmen  who  have  not  seen 
it  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  It 
is  a  sight  intensely  native  and  particular,  and  I  can 
imagine  no  memory  one  would  sooner  retain  in  exile 
or  even  in  death,  no  more  satisfying  symbol  of  the 
genius  of  the  race  than  the  ploughman's  team  with  its 
escort  of  white  birds.  Yet,  though  common  as  a 
rainbow,  whose  heart  can  but  leap  at  beholding  it, 
whose  mind  but  see  in  it  a  fount  of  mystery  and  legend  ? 
Flowers  sprang  from  the  sod  wherever  Aphrodite  set 
her  feet,  but  not  for  her  bloomed  the  spirit  of  wild 
freedom  as  it  blooms  and  scatters  its  petals  in  blessing 
over  the  heads  and  in  the  tracks  of  straining  horses 
and  simple  labouring  men,  fulfilling  the  earth.  Should 
man  ever  find  his  senses  and  plough  a  straight  furrow 
into  the  future,  may  the  white  birds  be  strewed  upon 
his  path,  thoughts  of  his  advancing  mind  and  stars  of 
his  true  courses  ! 

I  remember  one  gull-day  in  particular.  The  commonest 
species  along  the  coast  was  the  lesser  blackback  (though 
the  herring  ran  it  close),  and  they  were  always 
wandering  on  yellow  legs  over  the  grass  and  mud  or 
flying  over  one's  head  uttering  at  intervals  their 
gruff,  hoarse  owk  owk,  or  hah  hah,  like  the  muttering 
of  the  wilderness.  On  this  festival  day  there  were 
gathered  some  four  hundred  or  so  birds,  resting  on 


THE  FLATS  43 

the  mud  and  facing  one  another  in  two  long  lines.  The 
blackbacks  were  greatly  in  the  majority  and  were  all 
facing  one  way,  head  to  wind,  as  is  usual  with  gulls, 
and  in  the  manner  of  lapwings  and  fieldfares,  producing 
a  strong  effect  in  their  alternating  blacks  and  whites. 
Then  one  great  mass  rose  up,  as  it  seemed,  and  possibly 
was,  by  telepathic  suggestion,  by  a  sudden  rushing 
wind  of  common  impulse,  made  a  half-circle  and  joined 
forces  with  the  other,  creating  such  a  confusion  that 
the  whole  multitude  was  lifted  ponderously  up,  and 
out  of  the  cloud  came  threading  the  herring  gulls  like 
strands  pulled  out  of  a  skein,  their  silver-grey  wings 
gleaming  in  the  level  rays  of  the  sun,  and  leaving  the 
black  volume  to  come  foundering  down  again  upon 
the  yellow  sand.  Why  the  two  species  thus  separated 
I  cannot  pretend  to  guess,  but  enough  for  me  were  the 
power  and  grandeur  of  the  spectacle.  Had  the  species 
been  blackheads,  the  sight  would  have  been  less  impres- 
sive, their  flight  being  much  less  steady  and  determined. 

A  minute  later,  seven  goldfinches  rose  out  of  the  thistles 
growing  alongside  the  turf-banks,  in  no  wise  less  beautiful 
than  the  gulls,  but  displaying  their  refinement  and 
elegance  in  nature's  shop-window,  as  though  she  were 
a  kind  of  Whiteley's,  advertising  simultaneously  things 
impressive  for  their  splendour  and  appealing  for  their 
grace — except  that  the  purpose  of  the  one  is  money, 
of  the  other  only  life  and  beauty.  The  blackbacks 
were  in  the  habit  of  pursuing  the  smaller  gulls  (black- 
heads, and  perhaps  "  common,"  practically  indistinguish- 
able in  autumn  and  winter)  in  the  same  way  and  apparently 
with  the  same  object  as  skuas  pursue  terns  and  other 
species.  It  would  be  worth  while  finding  out  whether 
the  bigger  gulls — notable  poachers — are  not  sometimes 
experimentally  parasitic  upon  their  weaker  cousins  in 
the  skua  manner.  Skuas  have  specialized  in  this  form 
of  commercialism,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  they 
should  not  have  apprentices.1 

Another  impression  of  volume  was  a  flock  of  about 
a  thousand  starlings  trailing  high  up  above  the  pastures 
like  a  black,  stippled   cloud.      They  were  not  at  their 
1  See  p.  112. 


44        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

exercises,  but  came  across  the  sky  to  drift  and  sag  down 
among  the  cattle.  They  were  obviously  migrants,  and 
this  was  corroborated  by  further  detachments  flying  from 
north  to  south  to  join  the  main  body,  until  there  must 
have  been  nearly  two  thousand  birds  picked  out  against 
the  ground  like  a  field  of  black  flowers.  The  birds  were 
tired  out,  and  kept  straggling  in,  dragging  a  heavy  and  a 
weary  oar,  and  dropping  with  relief  into  the  cool  pastures. 

Larks,  too,  were  beginning  to  collect  into  their  autumn 
bands.  One  day  I  saw  about  thirty  of  them  within 
a  quarter  of  a  mile,  feeling  one  another's  presence  as 
it  were,  tasting  the  sense  of  contact  before  signing  the 
bond  of  association.  The  songs  of  these  larks  were 
very  interesting.  The  birds  rose  up  from  fifty  to  seventy 
feet,  and  there  hung  suspended,  fluttering  their  wings 
and  throwing  out  slow,  laboured  and  disjointed  notes — 
frozen  stalactites  rather  than  a  cascade  of  melody. 
Occasionally,  the  superb  trill  leaped  out  of  this  toil 
and  tangle  of  guttural  chords  only  to  fall  and  be  lost 
among  them  again.  The  curious  painfulness  of  the  whole 
performance  reminded  one  of  nothing  so  much  as  an 
academy  of  music.  Certainly  there  was  nothing  rapturous 
nor  unpremeditated  here  :  these  were  pupils  of  the  lark 
school,  not  blithe  spirits  and  "  etherial  pilgrims."  I 
hardly  attempt  to  explain  this,  since,  though  the  year 
was  at  the  fall,  larks  in  full  voice  were  occasionally  to 
be  heard.  I  can  only  surmise  that  this  was  a  party  of 
birds  collecting  for  partial  migration.  The  young  had  left 
their  grassy  cottages  and  gone  into  the  world  ;  the  sun 
had  climbed  so  far  above  them  that  he  could  not  warm 
them,  much  less  they  visit  him ;  the  Norfolk  larder  was 
running  bare,  and  the  east  wind  getting  into  their  throats.1 

A  curious  feature  of  the  flats  is  the  variety  of  inland 
birds  which  visit  them  in  the  autumn,  either  on  partial 
migration  or  on  foraging  expeditions,  or  simply,  as  it 
appears,  for  a  change  of  air  and  locality.  The  population 
of  shore  as  well  as  inland  birds  is  even  more  shifting, 
and  this  great  open  waste  may  be  likened  to  a  railway 
junction  or  a  busy  seaport  which  is  a  place  of  call  on  a 

1  The  reason,  I  expect,  was  a  physiological  change  corresponding 
with  the  change  in  the  seasons. 


THE  FLATS  45 

thriving  trade  route,  where  merchants,  sight-seers,  specu- 
lators, adventurers  and  natives  mingle  in  a  common 
throng.  One's  eye  will  turn  to  the  linnets  bounding 
through  space  with  fairy  chimes,  intoxicated  by  the 
pure  sharp  air,  and  sometimes  one  bird  pursuing 
another  in  a  playful  ecstasy  of  love.  From  them,  it 
will  perch  idly  on  a  patch  of  thistles  and  not  perceive 
at  first  that  the  little  balls  of  down  travelling  upwards, 
as  if  starting  a  handicap  race,  are  set  going  by  a  First 
Cause,  a  Primum  Mobile — a  pair  of  goldfinches  swaying, 
fluttering,  "waving  their  wings  in  gold,"  as  Horace  Walpole 
(a  true  lover  of  animals)  says,  on  the  thistle  heads. 

Once,  not  thirty  yards  from  Blakeney  Quay,  I  caught 
sight  of  a  male  siskin  perched  on  the  bank  of  a  small 
creek  among  the  herbage.  There  could  be  no  mistake, 
for  the  sun  shone  full  upon  his  greys  and  greens  and  the 
black  and  gold  wings  l  (exquisite  together  both  in  nature 
and  in  art),  and  I  was  but  twenty-five  paces  away.  But 
what  did  a  solitary  siskin  on  a  stream's  bank  in  this 
treeless  wilderness,  swept  by  the  bitter  east  wind  ?  Some 
hardy  and  adventurous  navigator,  planting  the  siskin 
flag  on  a  new  continent,  or  a  tired  traveller,  separated 
from  his  kin,  a  castaway  dumped  upon  this  sea  of  brown 
slime  and  marsh  by  the  rough  wind  ?  It  is  curious 
how  single  visitations  like  this  impress  themselves  upon 
the  mind.  On  the  banks  of  the  Suffolk  Aide  I  remember 
once  seeing  a  single  dabchick  in  the  river,  a  single 
goldfinch  feeding  on  a  thistle  head,  a  kingfisher  rushing 
down  a  muddy  creek  (a  pearl  in  an  oyster),  all  within 
a  couple  of  minutes,  and  then  a  few  minutes  later  a 
solitary  young  red-backed  shrike  perched  on  a  bush 
two  yards  away  (it  was  the  7th  of  October,  and  its  parents 
should  have  settled  down  in  Abyssinia  many  days 
before).  Whether  it  was  the  strangeness  of  this  last 
sight  or  the  contrast  afforded  by  a  flock  of  widgeon 
passing  me  in  full  whistle  soon  after,2  this  experience — 

1  The  winter  colouring  is  olivaceous. 

2  It  is  a  liquid  call,  and  not  unlike  both  the  low  and  fluting 
call  of  the  sheld-drakes  to  their  mates  in  the  breeding  season  and 
the  cry  of  the  stone-curlew  on  the  way  to  their  feeding-grounds 
in  the  dusk. 


46        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

a  necklace  strung  with  four  bright  beads — has  ever 
afterwards  remained  as  clearly  impressed  on  me  as  on 
the  day  it  happened. 

Small  flocks  of  wood-pigeons  used  to  feed  on  the 
saltings,  and  hordes  of  rooks  frequently  perched,  some- 
times with  a  kestrel  or  two  perched  near  them,  on  the 
telegraph  wires.  It  is  possible  that  in  the  event  of  the 
disappearance  of  our  woods,  the  rooks  would  still  keep 
a  hold  on  existence,  so  extraordinarily  adaptable  is  the 
crow  tribe  to  changes  of  condition.  Ropes  of  starlings, 
too,  were  to  be  seen  on  the  wires  in  hundreds,  each 
strand  a  living,  sentient,  intelligent  being,  whose  lustrous, 
plumage  seems  the  index  of  the  fire  of  life  burning  within. 

At  Holkham,  in  the  ugly,  formal  avenue  leading  through 
the  marshes  from  the  Leicester  estate  to  the  sandhills, 
I  saw  something  I  had  looked  for  a  long  time  in  vain. 
It  was  a  wandering  party  of  eight  long-tailed  tits, 
waving  their  tiny  wings  as  they  passed  by  short  stages, 
and  a  pretty  switchback  flight  from  one  bush  along  the 
drive  to  another.  When  they  alighted  before  travelling 
on  again  in  single  file,  they  looked  a  soft  white  (the 
rose  appears  on  the  scapulars,  flanks,  belly  and  lower 
part  of  the  back,  and  is  not  conspicuous)  among  the 
dark  bushes,  and  the  zee  zee  of  their  high,  thin,  stridu- 
lating  voices  (the  family  call-note  of  the  tits,  but  shriller, 
weaker  even  than  that  of  the  cole -tit  and  altogether 
more  insect-like)  sounded  incessantly,  as  their  minute, 
slender,  tapering  bodies  swung  through  the  air.  Here 
was  a  joyous  thing,  for  the  long-tailed  tit,  never  so 
abundant  as  his  four  cousins,  became  so  rare  after  the 
hyperborean  winter  of  1916-17,  that,  if  he  diminishes 
in  numbers  a  little  further,  he  will  be  doomed  to  the 
glass  case.  The  collector  will  have  him,  that  sham 
scientist  and  predatory  clod  who  preys  upon  the  mis- 
fortunes of  beautiful  living  things  and,  let  them  once 
be  rare,  damns  every  bird  to  death. 

The  wild  geese,  which  come  to  the  coast  from  Norway 
in  the  autumn,  I  saw  but  once — on  a  golden-tawny  spit 
of  land  about  a  mile  from  the  Wells  foreshore,  and  safe 
enough  from  the  gunner  to  resume  a  pleasant  social  life. 
Wonderful  tales  are  told  of  them.  It  is  said  that  they 


THE  FLATS  47 

know  within  a  few  yards  where  they  are  safe  on  the 
salt  marshes  (on  the  Earl  of  Leicester's  estate)  and 
where  not ;  that  they  will  pay  no  attention  to  a  man 
with  a  walking-stick,  but  that  the  sentinels  instantly 
warn  the  flock  of  the  approach  of  the  gunner  at  almost 
any  distance  away;  and  that  on  Sundays  when  no 
shooting  is  allowed  in  certain  localities  they  will  uncon- 
cernedly walk  about  with — my  own  interpolation — 
derisive  confidence  in  their  immunity.  According  to 
Darwin,  in  the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle,  the  Fuegians  could 
not  be  taught  to  connect  the  detonation  of  a  gun  with 
the  death  of  an  animal  at  a  distance  from  it.  It  is  well 
for  the  survival  of  the  wild  geese  that  they  have  learned 
the  ABC  of  such  association !  Even  the  domestic 
geese  (descended  from  the  grey  lag)  retain  something  of 
their  old  lofty  bearing  and  independence,  and  are  far  and 
away  the  most  original  and  sagacious  of  homestead  fowls. 


Norfolk  is  indeed  a  monstrous  fine  country  for  birds, 
and  the  seeker  has  fulfilment  of  his  quest  thrust  upon 
him.  Does  he  tire  of  the  mobs  of  pheasants  in  the  woods, 
does  the  exclusive  society  of  the  flats  keep  him  at  too 
uncomfortable  a  distance — almost  every  house  is  a  varied 
peep-show.  I  remember  spending  the  night  in  the  room 
of  a  beautiful  old  seventeenth-century  house  (with  fine 
gables,  clustered  chimneys  of  brickwork  in  the  Hampton 
Court  manner,  and  a  red-tiled  roof  with  shingled  pro- 
jections) in  one  of  the  coast  villages.  Here  I  had  a 
close  view  and  a  long  view — indeed,  the  privilege  was 
compulsory — of  two  jays,  two  dotterel,  two  corncrakes, 
a  long-eared  owl,  a  stone-curlew,  a  waxwing,  a  budgaree 
and  a  squirrel.  The  naturalist  had  but  to  sit  in  a  chair 
and  gaze  on  the  birds  performing  characteristic  actions 
in  their  glass  hives  like  petrified  acrobats.  Why  ever 
tear  a  thorny  way  through  brake,  through  briar  ?  Why 
spend  ten  guineas  on  a  field-glass  ?  Why  invite  lumbago 
in  a  bog  ?  Why  trouble  to  read  Shelley  in  the  original 
when  there  is  Matthew  Arnold's  criticism  ? 

The  sitting-room  I  had  included  other  objets  d'art 
besides  the  birds,  and  the  collector  had  mobilized  such 


48        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

a  variety  of  styles  and  periods,  and  with  so  princely  a 
gesture  of  impartial  munificence^  that  the  spectator, 
transported  by  this  generous  display  and  superiority 
to  the  anthological  principle,  could  but  exclaim — he 
nothing  common  did  or  mean  upon  this  memorable 
scene.  Among  the  infinite  riches  in  this  little  room 
were  massy  sideboards  and  "  escritoires "  and  mirrors 
and  tables  and  chairs  and  fern-stands  of  sham  oak 
elaborately  carved  and  ornamented.  One  good  cane 
chair  and  one  good  mirror  stood  making  wry  and  self- 
conscious  faces  at  one  another  amid  the  motley,  and 
I  admired  the  discrimination  which  could  bring  baseness 
and  virtue  into  such  close  relations  as  to  put  a  premium 
upon  the  charms  of  the  latter.  On  the  mantelpiece,  old 
Sheffield  candlesticks  rubbed  shoulders  with  china  plates 
printed  with  Dana  Gibson  vignettes  and  large  earthen- 
ware figures  modelled  from  Pears'  Soap  originals.  A  huge 
sideboard  of  sham  oak  (carved  and  gilt)  was  heaped 
with  plated  cheer — old  brass  and  pewter,  ash-trays, 
sauceboats,  old  willow-pattern  ware,  etc.,  side  by  side 
with  china  vases  and  lidded  pots  in  the  "  Present  from 
Margate "  manner.  On  the  walls  were  portraits  of 
music-hall  entertainers  and  hair-tonic  women,  hunting 
scenes,  antlers,  and  the  glass-eyed  birds  grotesquely 
posed  there  in  their  faded  plumage,  and  to  their  originals 
what  the  doggerel  of  an  advertisement  of  boot-blacking 
is  to  a  lyric  of  Dekker's. 

The  woman  of  the  house  was  worthy  of  her  household 
effects.  Flesh  and  blood  she  may  have  been,  but  I  saw 
nothing  but  a  clockwork  statue  for  movement  and  a 
mechanism  for  a  voice — an  inflexible  voice  with  no  ups 
and  downs  in  its  career,  but  plodding  along  an  endless, 
flat  desert  of  correct  utterance,  with  never  a  bush  nor 
pool  of  water.  She  hardly  thought  her  house,  which 
received  only  "  the  best  people,"  was  suitable  for  the 
likes  of  me.  Ah,  dear  lady,  thought  I,  your  anxiety 
to  get  rid  of  me  does  not,  cannot  equal  mine  to  escape 
your  cemetery  and  you,  poor  victim  of  a  sacrifice  of  which 
you  know  nothing,  but  for  which  all  of  us  of  this  genera- 
tion and  the  ghosts  of  the  past  one  are  responsible  and 
accountable ! 


THE  FLATS  49 

It  was  good  to  leave  this  domestic  pillar  of  salt  and 
see  once  more  a  grubby  child  sucking  acid-drops  in  the 
road  ;  to  leave  cheap  reprints  for  first  editions  again ;  and  to 
hear  once  more  the  cry  of  the  lapwing  and  the  humming  of 
the  cushat,  and  to  depart  a  county  altogether  whose  record 
is  kill  and  stuff,  stuff  and  kill  from  first  page  to  last. 

But  it  is  ill  to  leave  this  land  of  industrious  Fleming 
and  free-hearted  Northman  with  sour  feelings.  A  change 
is  certainly  at  hand,  and  it  is  equivalent  to  the  change 
that  is  taking  place  among  naturalists.  Up  to  the 
dawn  of  the  twentieth  century  a  naturalist  was  more 
or  less  judged  by  the  number  of  birds  or  mammals  of 
different  species  he  could  kill  in  a  lifetime,  and  accordingly 
Seebohm,  totting  up  the  number  of  titmice  he  had  shot 
in  Siberia  and  Gatke,  relating  how  he  had  "  obtained  " 
sixty  bluethroats  in  full  plumage  on  a  May  morning, 
were  the  Dioscuri  of  the  ornithological  Pantheon.  But 
the  mortuary  notion  of  excellence  in  Natural  History 
is  now  discredited,  though  as  yet  without  seriously 
checking  the  extermination  of  rare  species  by  the  predatory 
naturalist.  Progress  there  is,  and  one  way  of  detecting 
it  is  to  observe  the  process  among  individual  naturalists 
in  our  own  generation.  Many  naturalists  (J.  K.  Job, 
the  American  ornithologist,  Mr.  Edmund  Selous  and 
Mr.  Patterson  of  this  same  Norfolk,  are  distinguished 
examples)  have  discarded  the  old,  bad  tradition,  and 
been  converted  from  the  gun  to  the  field-glass.  It  is  indeed 
worthy  of  note  that  men  like  these,  emerged  from  the 
pupa  stage  of  Natural  History,  rather  than  the  professed 
"  humanitarian,"  attack  the  destroyers  with  the  most 
bitterness.  Paul,  after  all,  is  the  very  best  judge  of  what 
Saul  was.  Therefore,  there  is  a  kind  of  savour  in  the 
literary  works  of  these  "  converts,"  a  reality  given 
poignancy  by  occasional  outbursts  of  heroic  self-loathing, 
absent  from  the  writings  of  other  naturalists,  who, 
nurtured  in  more  civilized  and  philosophic  ways,  have 
never  known  the  temptation  to  use  a  gun  or  keep  an 
"  aviary."  It  is  pleasanter  and  truer,  then,  in  leaving 
Norfolk  to  think  of  Mr.  Patterson  and  to  reflect  that 
what  has  taken  place  in  him  with  such  lofty  credit  is 
surely,  if  slowly,  affecting  his  fine  countrymen. 

4 


CHAPTER    III 

A    CITY    OF    BIRDS 


THERE  is  only  one  mediaeval  town  in  England,  and 
it  is,  of  course,  in  the  West.  It  is  mediaeval  not  for 
historical  nor  archaeological  reasons,  but  because  it  is  a 
town  in  the  country,  gently  lowered  down,  all  ready- 
made,  into  a  cup  of  the  wooded  hills  and  there  left.  It 
is  an  island  of  stone  washed  by  the  green  seas,  thrusting 
out  capes  and  promontories  so  little  a  distance  from 
home  that  five  minutes'  walking  from  the  market-place 
to  any  point  of  the  compass  takes  one  right  out  to 
sea.  The  town  is  true  to  itself,  the  country  to  itself,  and 
the  neighbour!  iness  of  both  is  nowhere  broken  by  the 
mongrel  suburb,  which,  being  neither  town  nor  country, 
is  false  to  both.  There  is  no  other  town  in  England 
(with  the  possible  exception  of  Bath)  where  this  clear- 
cut  distinction,  this  Diireresque  feeling  can  be  properly 
savoured.  The  town,  apart  from  its  cathedral,  the  great 
stone  jewel  in  its  casket,  is  like  an  old  religious  poem — 
matter-of-fact  and  mystical,  precise  and  romantic.  It 
is  a  "  thing  that  you  may  touch  and  see,"  yet  not  of 
this  world. 

In  it  and  all  about  it  live  the  birds,  as  they  will  live 
about  a  farm-house  in  far  greater  numbers  and  variety 
than  in  the  open  country,  waiting  for  the  truce  that  never 
comes.  In  no  other  part  of  England,  whether  pasture, 
salting,  heath  or  woodland,  have  I  seen  the  birds  so 
abundant,  confident  and  varied,  as  in  the  streets,  the 
cathedral  precincts  and  the  pastoral  borders  of  this 
changeling  town. 

I  have  lived  in  the  little  town  both  in  spring  and  in 
autumn,  and  can  no  more  choose  between  them  than 
between  Comus  and  Samson  Agonistes.  For  autumn,  like 

50 


A   CITY   OF  BIRDS  51 

spring,  is  a  time  of  preparation,  and  if  the  one  garnishes, 
the  other  sweeps  the  house.  Spring  writes  the  prelude 
to  summer,  autumn  stores  its  material  for  spring.  "  O 
wind,  if  winter  comes,  can  spring  be  far  behind  ?  "  The 
poets  are  so  often  the  prophets  of  biological  truth,  for 
the  wind  scatters  the  seeds.  Autumn  is  indeed  at  once 
prodigal  and  provident ;  the  balance  of  life  is  being 
spent,  only  to  be  invested  for  the  future.  Spring  is 
not  always  a  "  faerie's  child,"  and  autumn  is  a  burning 
bush,  so  much  an  image  of  intense  life  that  one  cannot 
believe  it  will  be  consumed.  Here  is  an  account  of  a 
spring  visit  in  which  age  was  strangely  mingled  with 
youth  and  beauty  with  ugliness.  There  is  a  wonderful 
place  some  half  a  dozen  miles  from  the  cathedral 
town.  It  is  famous  for  yet  another  cathedral,  not  built 
with  human  hands,  with  its  pinnacles  rising  out  of  the 
massive,  battlemented  rocks  three  hundred  feet  high ; 
its  parapets,  gables,  screens,  arcades  and  canopies  cut 
by  the  First  Architect  out  of  their  own  element,  and 
the  carvings  and  traceries — the  grace  of  strength,  the 
delicacy  of  grandeur — the  ivy,  hawthorn,  mountain  ash  and 
creeping  plants  that  lace  the  sheer  walls.  This  cathedral  is 
hewn  out  of  the  limestone  cliffs,  once,  no  doubt,  the  walls 
of  a  sea-cavern  whose  roof  fell  in  with  the  action  of  the 
sea-waves.  Its  graveyard,  or  cloister-garth,  if  I  must 
speak  more  elegantly,  is  economically  built  into  the 
walls,  since  the  limestone  is  a  conglomerate  mass  of 
petrified  life,  a  vast  biographical  museum  of  a  world 
which  had  not  yet  conceived  the  sombre  idea  of  man. 
Before  the  deep  gorge,  with  the  cliffs  soaring  on  either 
side,  is  reached,  one  passes  through  a  straggling  village, 
and  beyond  it  come  the  caves,  plastered  over  with 
tin  shanties,  refreshment  booths,  advertisement  posters 
and  a  loathsome  white  pagoda  conspicuous  for  miles 
round.  On  the  other  side  of  the  street  runs  a  dirty 
little  mud  and  bottle-encumbered  brook,  occasionally 
broadening  into  pools,  so  that  on  one  side  we  have 
Victorian  picturesqueness  a  little  damaged,  and  on 
the  other  a  transplanted  Earl's  Court  Exhibition — two 
civilizations  nagging  across  at  one  another  their  superior 
advantages. 


52        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

Then  suddenly  round  a  corner  towers  a  third,  which 
will  remain  when  these  showy  little  fellows  have  passed 
away,  and  stood  there,  impregnable  and  lofty,  aeons 
before  the  worthy  of  river-bed  type,  whose  skull  reposes 
in  a  glass-case,  making  money  for  a  more  up-to-date 
society,  chiselled  and  polished  his  flints  on  the  floor  of 
the  cave,  that  knew  not,  as  it  does  now,  electric  light. 
Here  were  absolute  solitude  and  a  kind  of  keyed-up, 
concentrated  silence,  broken  only  by  the  bright  voices 
of  the  daws,  whose  cries,  made  metallic  and  almost 
shrill  in  the  hollow  between  the  cliffs,  went  spinning 
and  leaping  from  crag  to  crag.  The  contrast  between  the 
one  scene  and  the  other  was  theatrical,  the  imperious, 
precipitous  rocks  seeming  to  frown  down  upon  the  dwarfed 
face  of  our  mean,  gimcrack,  competitive  modernism  and  to 
make  it  piteous,  like  a  slum-child  with  a  cross-grained  leer. 

When  I  walked  up  the  gorge  in  spring,  the  shrubs 
and  ivy  and  minute  trees  were  clothed  in  their  first 
tender  leaf,  as  if  the  solid  cliff  had  blossomed,  and  their 
fragility  and  delicacy  of  form  and  colour  against  the 
gaunt  walls  of  grey,  primeval  rock  were  so  beautiful  that 
"  the  sense  faints  picturing  "  them.  Gazing  upon  this 
miracle  and  thinking  of  the  huckstering  going  on  fifty 
yards  away,  a  portrait  in  little  of  man's  general  defile- 
ment of  the  world,  one  could  not  but  be  tranquillized  by 
the  assurance  that  treasures  of  loveliness  lie  dormant  in 
the  hard  heart  of  man,  and  that  they  will  one  day  sprout 
like  the  "glad  light  grene"  from  the  face  of  this  bare  rock. 

I  was  disturbed  from  these  sentimental  flights  by  a 
more  material  one — the  flight  of  an  old  friend  of  Neolithic 
man,  the  hero  of  so  many  dark  legends,  and  doomed  very 
soon  now  to  reside  like  him  in  a  glass  case.  The  rock- 
churches  of  nature  are  now  almost  everywhere  sacked  of 
their  ecclesiastics — raven,  kite,  buzzard  and  eagle — and 
one  has  to  be  content  with  the  choir-boys — kestrel,  daw 
and  pie.  Yet  this  cathedral  had  its  attendant  priest, 
for  the  raven  was  nesting  not  a  hundred  yards  from 
his  human  prehistoric  contemporary.  The  nest  was 
two  hundred  feet  up  the  rock  in  a  natural  cleavage, 
sheltered  above  by  overhanging  boulders,  and  projecting 
over  the  platform — inaccessible,  one  would  have  thought, 


A    CITY   OF  BIRDS  53 

even  to  the  collector  who  is  always  so  ready  to  break  other 
people's  necks  to  fill  his  cabinets  with  egg-shells.  Though 
the  birds  were  sometimes  five  hundred  feet  above  me, 
the  beat  of  the  wings  was  always  audible,  and  when 
they  half-closed  their  vans  and  dropped  a  hundred  feet 
sheer  before  catching  themselves  up  by  a  rapid  shooting 
out  of  them,  the  noise  was  like  a  wind.  Now  and  then 
both  birds  alighted  on  the  bluff  opposite  their  nest  and 
caressed  each  other,  the  male  locking  mandibles  with 
his  mate  and  swaying  gently  with  her,  or  nibbling  at 
the  hairs  at  the  base  of  her  bill  with  caressing  murmurs, 
fondling  sounds  totally  different  from  his  normal  voice. 
They  were  seldom  silent,  and  while  the  hen  bird  was 
on  the  nest,  her  mate  floated  above  the  cliffs  with 
primaries  outspread,  like  the  fingers  of  a  hand,  uttering 
his  loud,  rumbling  bark-growl-croaks,  like  a  bishop 
reading  the  Litany.  The  sounds  went  tumbling  down 
the  gullies  and  against  the  bastions  of  the  steepled  rock, 
"  ancestral  voices,  prophesying  war." 

There  is  something  in  us  which  responds  to  the  raven 
in  his  natural  haunts,  as  men  with  a  great  literature 
behind  us  in  which  he  plays  his  grim  part,  because  his 
aloofness  and  majesty  are  an  expression  in  terms  of  life 
of  desert  places  which  owe  nothing  to  us  and  our  machines, 
and  because,  in  the  words  of  Taylor,  the  water-poet, 
he  is  "  old,  old,  very  old,"  older  even  than  ourselves, 
who  took  our  human  form  a  million  years  ago.  The 
tragedy  of  mankind  is  not  a  little  thing,  but  it  takes 
a  belittling  shape — and  a  tragedy  without  rhythm  and 
dignity  is  a  pitiful  thing  indeed.  The  raven  is  essentially 
a  tragic  bird,  in  his  shape  and  colour,  in  the  nature  of 
his  fastnesses,  in  his  fierce  temper,  in  his  associations, 
and  in  the  gloomy  destiny  he  has  suffered  at  our  hands. 
But  he  is  no  more  vulgar  with  it  than  the  lonely  places 
he  inhabits,  of  which  he  is  the  living  symbol,  and  the 
sight  of  him  recaptures  for  us  the  commingled  tragedy  and 
sublimity  of  the  human  story.  Outlined  against  the  bluff, 
like  a  bird  statue  hewn  out  of  night  or  the  rocks  of  his 
home,  he  who  has  given  so  much  dark  inspiration  to 
legend,  tragedy,  verse  and  history,  drop  down  into  the 
shadowy  sea  of  twilight,  himself  a  shadow,  and,  when 


54        BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

he   disappears,  no  longer  even  the  ghost  of  an  ancient 
memory. 

As  I  came  down  the  gorge  I  saw  something  which 
for  grandeur  and  awe  outpaced  even  the  ravens.  A 
few  daws  were  sporting  and  soaring  and  dashing  head- 
long like  tumbler  pigeons  among  the  cliffs,  when  a  great 
company  of  them  suddenly  rose  into  sight  from  the 
hills  opposite  me  in  a  compact  body — fully  half  a 
thousand  of  them — ringing  out  their  crisp,  detonating 
cries  in  loud  unison.  Then,  with  nothing  visible  or 
audible  to  account  for  it,  they  formed  into  a  thick 
column  so  quickly  that  the  eye  could  not  follow  the 
change  of  position,  and  hurled  themselves  obliquely 
across  the  ravine  with  such  speed  that  the  roar  of  their 
wings  was  that  of  huge  breakers  in  a  lofty  sea-cavern. 
The  experience  was  so  extraordinary — the  uniformity 
and  precision  of  this  precipitate  flight,  its  incredible 
velocity,  the  tornado  of  cries  from  five  hundred  throats, 
the  rush  of  five  hundred  black  bodies  across  the  sky, 
and  the  mighty  thundering  of  the  wings — that  a 
botanist  I  was  walking  with,  filled  with  the  divine  fire 
of  having  viewed  a  pink  (Dianthus  ccesius)  which  grew 
in  the  gorge  and  nowhere  else  in  Great  Britain,  shouted 
with  the  excitement  of  it  and  talked  of  nothing 
else  for  the  rest  of  the  way.  Nothing  but  violent 
terror,  or  a  rapture  so  intense  as  to  demand  a  furious 
expression  of  it,  could  have  caused  so  strange  an 
upheaval. 

So  back  from  the  surge  and  thunder  of  the  daws' 
Odyssey  to  the  rustic  bridge,  the  white  pagoda  and  the 
ginger-beer  bottles.  It  seems  a  queer  thing  that  we 
should  have  to  pass  through  the  one  to  reach  the  other — 
that  for  the  human  mind  to  grasp  the  value  and  wonder 
of  creation,  its  power  and  intensity  and  abundance, 
its  manifoldness  in  uniformity,  its  intricacy  in  coherence, 
its  flux  and  diversity  in  persistence  and  continuity,  it 
must  penetrate  every  ugliness  and  folly.  But  so  it  is, 
and  such  is  the  meaning  of  the  progress  whose  tangle 
confuses  us  to  deny  it.  We  cannot  know  our  gain  until 
we  have  tasted  the  full  bitterness  of  its  loss. 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  55 

II 

But  I  am  forgetting  my  little  town  and  its  birds. 
At  the  end  of  March  the  blackthorn  at  the  edge  of  the 
town  is  nearly  over,  and  is  as  beautiful  then  as  when 
its  outlines  are  more  definite.  As  is  usual  with  the  rose 
tribe,  the  petals  have  dropped  off,  leaving  the  innumerable 
white  stamens,  like  the  white  filaments  of  the  egret 
on  a  miniature  scale,  protruding  from  the  corolla.  The 
effect  at  a  distance  is  as  though  the  black  twigs  were 
wreathed  in  a  luminously  white  spray  or  in  scarves  of 
mist  which  must  soon  evaporate  upon  the  air.  Approach- 
ing the  cathedral  from  the  fields,  the  grey  stone  screened 
but  not  hidden  from  view  by  a  tracery  of  "glad  light 
grene,"  I  was  like  a  traveller  discovering  some  wonderful 
city  of  legend,  and  now  that  I  have  left  it,  the  memories 
remain  draped  over  my  mind  like  the  green  shoots  over 
the  stone  walls. 

It  is  one  of  the  more  cherished  of  them  that  I  found 
on  the  borders  the  first  pair  of  whitethroats  I  had 
seen  that  year  love-making  on  May  llth.  There  was 
the  male,  singing  his  grating,  exuberant  song  in  an 
abandonment  of  love  and  glee,  swelling  out  his  throat, 
flirting  his  tail,  swaying  his  body,  leaping  into  the  air 
in  a  transport  and  somersaulting  back  to  his  twig.  How 
different  is  his  singing,  which  seems  to  sprout  from  the 
gesticulating  body  and  the  whole  nervous  fluid  of  his 
temperament,  from  the  deliberate  pose  of  the  chaffinch, 
as  he  takes  his  stand  on  a  bough  and  proceeds  formally 
to  sing  his  rivals  down  in  that  set  flourish  which 
Mr.  Hudson  calls  "  a  musical  sneeze  "  ! 

Bird-watching  is  full  of  surprises,  and  I  fancy  any 
moderately  competent  observer  could,  in  the  course  of 
years,  collect  enough  facts  about  the  habits  of  birds  to 
place  against  most  of  the  text-book  information  that 
denies  them.  Not  that  the  text-books  are  wrong.  But 
the  fact  that  one  compiler  in  his  study  is  apt  to  take 
upon  his  shoulders  the  generalizations  of  his  pre- 
decessor ;  that  nature  will  not  be  cut  to  the  measuring 
yard,  and  that  the  observation  of  birds  unharmed 
and  in  their  natural  homes  is  a  comparatively  new 


56         BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

science  should  make  one  wary  of  the  hand-book.  Thus 
I  watched  a  willow-wren  building  his  nest  on  the  top 
of  the  magnificent  old  wall  surrounding  the  bishop's 
palace,  all  festooned  with  plum,  cherry  and  peach  blossom, 
as  if  he  were  doing  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world, 
and  not  (as  he  was)  violating  ornithological  propriety. 

In  or  near  the  garden  itself,  surrounded  by  a  moat 
and  forming  with  its  wall  an  annexe  to  the  cathedral 
buildings — redstart,  blackcap,  garden  warbler,  willow- 
wren,  chiff-chaff,  wren,  robin,  spotted  fly-catcher,  tree- 
creeper,  pied  wagtail,  greenfinch  and  chaffinch  all  nested, 
while  just  outside,  the  grey  wagtail,  the  pearl-grey  and 
sulphur-yellow  Ariel  of  the  moorland  stream  hatched 
and  reared  a  party  of  young. 

One  day  I  went  off  birds-nesting  among  the  pastures 
and  woods  that  frame  the  town,  and  in  an  hour  I  found 
a  blackbird's  nest  in  a  copse  with  four  eggs,  a  wren's 
in  a  faggot  of  wood  with  five  (when  I  returned  in  the 
autumn  I  found  the  faggots  gone — what  should  I  feel 
like  if  a  giant  hand  came  down  upon  my  home  and, 
regardless  of  my  cries,  wrenched  it  from  the  ground, 
carried  it  off,  broke  it  up  and  cast  it  with  all  its  inmates 
into  some  gigantic  furnace  ?  But  perhaps  the  little 
wrens  took  the  hedges  in  time),  a  starling's  and  a 
yaffle's  in  the  trunk  of  the  same  tall  birch,  a  blue  tit's 
in  an  oak,  a  crow's  (positively  a  crow's,  the  most 
persecuted  bird  in  England)  with  four  young  on  the  top 
of  a  hedgerow  elm,  and  another  blackbird's  in  the  fork  of 
a  thorn  on  the  banks  of  the  stream  a  mile  from  the  town. 

The  hen-bird  of  this  nest  was  sitting,  and  with  perfect 
devotion  and  gallantry  never  moved  except  to  turn 
her  anguished  eyes  from  the  wide  fields,  the  flowing 
water  and  the  sprawling  hedges,  symbols  of  freedom, 
of  security,  of  life  itself,  to  me  peering  at  her  not  six 
inches  from  her  bill.  This  was  a  surprise  to  me,  for 
the  blackie,  the  Miss  Bates  of  bird  society  and  the 
least  intelligent  of  the  thrushes,  usually  betrays  the 
nest  by  flustered  exit  and  loud  alarm-cry  more  readily 
almost  than  any  other  bird.  Now,  it  happened  that 
the  dusky  brown  of  the  bird  harmonized  so  well  with 
the  dim,  neutral  tints  of  her  home,  and  the  nest  was 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  57 

so  securely  guarded  on  the  land-side  from  prowling 
fox,  weasel  or  cat  by  the  interlacing  branches  of  the  thorn 
that  both  herself  and  her  charge  were  safer  where  they 
were.  Here  is  a  relevant  passage  of  Mr.  Hudson's : — • 

"  The  instinct  which  in  character  comes  nearest  to  that  of  the 
parent  simulating  the  action  of  a  wounded  and  terrified  bird 
struggling  to  escape  in  order  to  safeguard  its  young,  is  that  one, 
strong  in  a  ground-feeding  species,  of  sitting  close  on  the  nest  in 
the  presence  of  danger.  Here,  too,  the  instinct  is  of  prime  im- 
portance to  the  species,  since  the  bird  by  quitting  the  nest  reveals 
its  existence  to  the  nest-seeking  enemy.  .  .  .  By  leaving  its  nest 
a  minute  or  half  a  minute  too  soon  the  bird  sacrifices  the  eggs  or 
young ;  by  staying  a  moment  too  long  it  is  in  imminent  danger 
of  being  destroyed  itself.  How  often  the  bird  stays  too  long  on 
the  nest  is  seen  in  the  corncrake,  a  species  continually  decreasing 
in  this  country  c  Ing  to  the  destruction  caused  by  the  mowing 
machine.  The  parent  birds  that  escape  may  breed  again  in  a  safer 
place,  but  in  many  cases  the  bird  clings  too  long  to  its  nest  and 
is  decapitated  or  fatally  injured  by  the  cutters.  Larks,  too, 
often  perish  in  the  same  way." 

But  here  it  was  the  other  way  round,  for  I  must  assume 
that  the  blackbird,  for  all  her  fear,  was  aware  of  her 
security.  Otherwise,  why  did  she  break  her  habit  ?  For 
the  instinct  to  fly  the  blackbird  had  rightly  substituted 
the  intelligence  to  take  advantage  of  special  circumstance, 
and  stay  where  she  was.  Her  instinct  here,  that  is  to 
say,  would  have  played  her  false,  where  hi  other  circum- 
stances it  would  have  preserved  her.  Devotion  and  policy 
were  here  at  one,  and  the  incident  or  lack  of  it  was  a 
striking  example  of  a  bird's  power  of  breaking  responsively 
away  from  fixed  instincts  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the 
marked  individual  differences  in  character  among  birds 
of  the  same  species  on  the  other.  This,  too,  from  the 
more  routine-bound  female.  For  birds  to  most  people 
are  what  the  Restoration  plays  are  to  me — I  cannot  for 
the  life  of  me  remember  one  plot  from  another. 

But  if  there  are  examples  of  intelligent  departures 
from  instinct  in  the  domestic  behaviour  of  birds,  there 
are  others  of  stupidity.  In  an  unkempt  hawthorn  hedge, 
throwing  out  long  shoots  into  the  adjoining  pasture, 
I  found  a  chaffinch's  nest  with  three  eggs  in  it — flesh- 
coloured  in  ground  colour  with  a  faint  bluish  tinge  and 


58        BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

mottled  with  spots  of  blood-purple — an  architectural 
masterpiece  woven  of  moss,  strengthened  with  small 
twigs,  dried  grasses  and  wool  and  sprinlded  with  lichen, 
the  lining  being  made  of  feathers,  vegetable  down,  and 
horsehair.  It  was  fixed  to  a  horizontal  branch  three 
feet  from  the  ground  and  at  least  two  from  the  body 
of  the  hedge,  so  that  it  was  clearly  visible  some  distance 
away.  In  the  long  grass  at  the  foot  of  the  same  hedge 
thirty  yards  away  there  was  an  ingeniously  concealed 
chiff-chaff's  nest,  which  I  should  never  have  discovered 
but  for  flushing  the  sitting-bird,  which  perched  near 
by,  wailing  the  anxious  hui,  hweet.  When  I  was  parting 
the  grass  I  made  a  clumsy  movement,  and  to  my 
regret  disarranged  the  upper  part  of  the  dome.  I  retired, 
thinking  it  would  be  better  to  leave  repairs  to  the  builder 
— ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam — and  hoping  all  would  be  well. 
I  returned  an  hour  later,  and  found  that  she  had  perfectly 
re-thatched  the  roof  of  her  hamlet. 

Blackbird,  chaffinch  and  chiff-chaff  taught  me  a 
good  deal  that  day.  When  a  rook  drops  a  mussel  on 
the  rocks,  it  is  acting  intelligently,  perceptually,  with 
a  definite  and  conscious  end  in  view.1  W7hen  a  bird 
builds  a  nest,  it  is  acting  instinctively,  upon  "  uncon- 
scious memory,"  and  spending  its  ancestral  gains.  The 
end  is  perfectly,  but  not  (so  far  as  we  know)  consciously 
achieved.  The  bird  is  obedient  to  a  passionate  germinal 
impulse.  But  the  choice  of  nesting  sites  brings  individual 
as  opposed  to  racial,  and  intelligent  as  opposed  to 
instinctive  faculties  into  play.  Complexity  both  of 
conditions  and  of  needs,  a  nexus  of  problems,  fluctuating 
from  year  to  year,  confront  each  separate  pair  of  birds, 
to  be  met  and  solved  only  by  intelligence,  or  at  any 
rate,  intelligence  working  upon  a  ground-plan  of 
instinct.2  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Bergson  was 

1  In  fact,  the  only  difference  between  the  rook's  and  man's  noblest 
behaviour  is  that  the  one  has  a  concrete,  the  other  an  abstract 
end  in  view. 

a  In  Sussex  this  year,  for  instance,  the  trees  on  which  a 
rookery  was  situated  were  cut  down,  and  the  birds  promptly 
built  their  nests  and  raised  their  young  in  rabbit  holes.  Sir  F.  C. 
Gould  told  me  of  a  nightjar  which  hatched  two  young  among 
the  shingle  on  the  Devonshire  coast,  the  protective  resemblance 


A  CITY   OF   BIRDS  59 

right  when  he  described  instinct  and  intelligence  as  upon 
divergent  tacks  of  evolution.  But  the  point  is  that  they 
intertwine,  and  never  more  closely  than  in  nidification. 
Once  the  nesting  site  is  chosen,  then  instinct  operates  upon 
the  ground-plan  of  intelligence.  But  if  there  is  a  spice  of 
instinct  in  choosing  the  site  of  the  nest,  so  there  is  a  spice 
of  intelligence  in  building  it,  since  the  bird  can  and  does 
mset  circumstances  which  break  the  routine  and  experi- 
ment (as  sometimes  happens)  with  new  materials.  It  was 
intelligence,  not  instinct,  which  this  chaffinch  lacked.  In 
prospecting  for  sites,  activity  is  chiefly  unpredictable  and 
indeterminate ;  in  building  upon  them,  fixed  and  regulated. 
Or,  to  put  it  in  another  way,  the  present  trains  the 
cannon,  the  past  charges  it  (viz.  directs  the  bird  how 
to  build  its  nesl*,,  and  the  present  discharges  it.  Nidi- 
fication, I  am  sure,  is  an  example  of  the  most  delicate 
interaction  of  instinct  and  intelligence. 

Blackcap  and  garden-warbler  sang  almost  side  by  side 
in  the  steep  wood  fronting  one  angle  of  the  town,  the 
softer  and  thicker  rush  of  "  petty  chap's  "  fairy  music 
contrasting  with  his  congener's  "  full,  deep,  sweet,  loud, 
wild  pipe,"  as  White  described  it,  while  the  tremulous 
sighs  of  the  wood-wrens  not  so  high  up  among  the 
"  melodious  greenery  "  as  they  get  later  in  the  season 
seemed  to  express  pleasure  at  the  privilege  of  enjoying 
these. two  princely  warblers  beneath  its  fresh,  bright 
canopy.  It  is  not  often  that  garden-warbler  and 
blackcap  can  be  heard  in  close  proximity,  for  the 
former  (it  may  be)  seeks  to  avoid  any  critical  comparison 
of  his  melody  with  that  of  his  more  brilliant  cousin. 
In  quality  and  general  likeness  there  is  very  little 
difference  between  the  two  songs,  though  the  garden 
warbler's  is  more  sustained  ;  in  the  manner  and  spirit 
of  delivery  the  birds  are  poles  apart.  The  garden- 
warbler  is  a  more  approachable  bird — I  have  watched 
him  singing  and  flitting  about  in  my  sight  for  half  an 
hour  at  a  time — he  sings  more  frequently,  and  his  lay 
is  of  a  soberer  colouring.  In  the  blackcap's  song  there 

of  the  eggs  and  young  to  the  shingle  being,  he  said,  as  perfect  as 
that  of  terns.  Here  initiative,  experiment  and  intelligence  were 
completely  justified  of  instinct. 


60        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

seems  the  desire  of  something  uncapturable,  and  so  an 
impression  of  something  unachieved— the  goal  of  all 
poetry  and  religion,  human  and  natural,  which  is  never 
reached.  His  cousin  sings  a  more  routine  music  without 
fieriness  of  heart  and  within  his  own  horizon.  It  is 
appropriate,  therefore,  to  be  able  to  see  the  garden 
warbler  easily  and  the  blackcap  with  difficulty,  and 
that  the  one  seems  to  shun  the  presence  of  the  other 
as  the  more  inspired  master  who  outshines  his  domestic 
fire.  They  sometimes,  however,  sing  together. 

If  summer  is  the  fulfilment  of  desire,  spring  is  the 
ardour  of  the  year,  and  the  greening  earth  seems  to 
ferment  with  melody,  which  bubbles  into  a  confused 
shrilling  when  the  young  birds  begin  to  shout  for 
food.  An  oak-wood  near  the  town  was  so  thick  with 
young  starlings  that  one  might  almost  imagine  the 
trees  were  made  of  metal  leaves  beaten  thin,  susurrating 
together  when  the  wind  stirred  them.  In  the  diffused 
chorus  of  more  familiar  songs  and  calls,  so  copious  in 
favoured  places  that  the  air  seems  to  vibrate  with  them, 
it  is  a  rare  pleasure  to  catch  the  notes  of  less  common 
birds.  A  pair  of  long-tailed  tits  disport  themselves 
among  the  branches,  their  minute  bodies  drifting  through 
the  trees  like  animated  balls  of  down,  come  away  with 
a  long  black  stem,  and  the  male  now  and  again  throws 
out  a  low  and  tender  call  to  his  mate,  different  from 
the  insect-like  zee  zee  of  more  prosaic  feelings.  I  have 
heard  the  wryneck,  a  rare  bird  in  the  West  of  England, 
in  this  wood  (on  April  2nd),  but  I  have  never  seen  him 
there,  his  mocking,  penetrating,  mysterious  puy9  puy, 
puy  enticing  me  on  to  seek  his  richly-mottled  form  in 
vain,  like  a  horn  of  Elfland  tempting  a  lost  traveller 
into  deeper  and  deeper  recesses  of  the  forest.  Here,  too, 
the  nuthatch  pealed  out  his  clear  tui,  tui,  and  I  have 
been  so  lucky  as  to  have  eight  or  nine  jays  passing  over 
my  head  in  the  crowns  of  the  trees,  uttering  a  subdued 
and  more  musical  version  of  the  familiar  scream.  They 
were  all  in  great  excitement,  and  were,  I  expect,  on  their 
way  to  one  of  their  spring  concerts.  Until  nesting 
operations  actually  begin,  jays  are  rather  more  than 
less  social  in  the  nuptial  season. 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  61 

Emerging  on  to  the  open  uplands  from  these  bowers 
of  song  and  flower,  I  could  for  a  week  on  end  be  sure 
of  both  seeing  and  hearing  a  family  of  woodlarks  living 
on  the  grassy  borders  of  another  wood.  Seen  close  at 
hand — and  they  showed  an  agreeable  unconcern  at  my 
presence — woodlarks  can  easily  be  distinguished  from 
skylarks.  The  body  is  smaller  and  not  so  slender,  the  crest 
rather  more  elongated,  the  colouring  of  a  richer  striped 
and  mottled  tawny,  the  tail  very  short,  and  the  whiteish 
eye-stripe  more  strongly  marked  and  joining  at  the 
back  of  the  head  to  make  a  diadem  or  wreath  about 
the  crown.  There  is  also  a  patch  of  white  at  the  edge 
of  the  wing,  which  skylarks  lack.  When  alarmed,  the 
birds  take  at  OP~^  to  the  trees,  and  lead  a  double  life 
between  them  and  the  ground,  feeding,  nesting  and  (I 
think)  roosting  on  the  latter  and  singing  in  the  former 
or  in  the  air.  The  flight  is  swift  and  wavering,  and,  unlike 
the  skylark,  the  birds  singing  soar  the  sky  in  spirals, 
but  do  not  climb  so  high,  partly,  no  doubt,  owing  to 
the  shortness  of  the  tail,  which  throws  a  heavy  strain 
on  the  wings.  The  song,  which  I  heard  every  day,  is 
more  reposeful  than  the  skylark's,  as  is  the  general 
temper  of  the  bird,  purer  and  more  intrinsically  beautiful, 
though  less  so  in  association.  It  is  freer  of  guttural 
notes,  less  overpoweringly  joyous  and  ringing,  and  more 
in  the  notation  of  a  clear,  fluting  warble.  The  melodious 
call-note — ulu — has  a  strange,  melancholy  spell  of  its 
own.  There  were  five  of  this  uncommon  species,  and 
the  parents  must  have  nested  in  the  neighbourhood. 

This  park-like  down  of  alternating  wood  and  pasture, 
where  the  yellow  umbels  of  the  tufted  horseshoe  vetch 
(the  only  British  species)  bloomed  profusely  among 
the  violets  and  yellow  rock-rose,  sloped  down  to  the 
cathedral,  and  within  view  of  it  I  have  seen  both  the 
greater  and  the  lesser  spotted  woodpeckers,  the  latter 
only  once,  and  indeed  but  for  the  second  time  within 
memory.  Kestrels  used  to  spiral  up  the  sky  on  the 
higher  ground,  travelling  upwards  at  great  speed  and 
with  rigidly  extended  wings.  The  spiralling  of  hawks 
is  really  air-tacking,  and  a  sailing  boat  moves  through 
the  water  and  a  bird  soars  through  the  air,  the  one  by 


62         BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

an  intelligent,  the  other  by  an  instinctive  adaptation 
to  the  law  of  the  parallelogram  of  forces.  But  the 
kestrels  also  took  advantage  of  the  upward  tilt  of  the 
wind  which  occurs  in  hilly  country.  Large  birds  save 
themselves  an  exhausting  expenditure  of  force  by  their 
instinctive  meteorological  knowledge.  Meadow-pipits  were 
abundant  on  the  plateau,  and  I  had  many  opportunities 
of  watching  and  hearing  them  sing,  a  necessary  corre- 
lation, for  they  leap  from  the  ground  and  descend 
upon  expanded  wings  and  tail  (which  is  cocked)  in  a 
slanting  curve  from  forty  or  fifty  feet  in  the  air,  the 
notes  running  more  and  more  rapidly  together  as  the 
bird  nears  the  ground.  It  is  not  a  champion's  song, 
but  is  beautiful  in  its  suitability  to  the  wide  expanse 
of  earth  and  sky  where  the  bird  is  at  home  and  winds 
are  abroad,  and  in  tone  is  itself  like  the  wind  among 
seeded  grasses.  And  this  fitness  to  environment  can 
be  pursued  further.  The  delicate  birds  and  the  fragile 
upland  flowers  were  to  the  down  what  the  traceried 
carvings  are  to  the  cathedral  pile  and  the  lyrics  to  the 
great  substance  of  Shelley's  Prometheus. 

In  the  spring  before  the  visit  I  am  relating  I  neither 
heard  nor  saw  a  single  bullfinch,  but  this  year  I  could 
leave  the  woodlarks  and  pipits  of  the  open  for  the  bull- 
finches of  the  shades  almost  as  assuredly  as  I  could  leave 
the  trefoils  and  rock-roses  for  the  wood-anemones,  as  lovely 
closed  as  open,  for  in  dull  weather  they  are  like  white 
globes  lit  inwardly,  so  transparent  are  their  fragile  petals, 
many  of  which  are  faintly  dyed  with  a  delicate  pale 
lilac,  and  a  few — fairest  of  all — with  sky-blue.  I  remem- 
ber once  that  while  walking  among  the  woodlands,  there 
suddenly  burst  upon  me  the  voices  of  all  the  outcasts 
and  gipsies  among  the  birds — the  growling  caw  of  the 
crow,  the  exhilarating  shrieks  of  jays,  the  chattering 
of  pies  and  the  distant  chanting  of  wood-owls.  Gradu- 
ally they  fell  silent,  and  then  in  the  quiescence  of  nature, 
her  indignation  stilled,  I  heard  a  few  feet  away  in  the 
hazels  the  low,  intimate  wind-music  of  the  bullfinch. 
The  change  of  mood  was  extraordinarily  dramatic, 
but  the  soft  plaintiveness  of  the  notes  preserved  the 
continuity  of  the  experience  and  retained  its  significance, 
while  introducing  a  consoling  variation  upon  it. 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  63 

A  red-backed  shrike  had  his  pitch  near  the  town, 
and  was  generally  to  be  found  perched  boldly  on  the 
topmost  twig  of  a  hedgerow  hawthorn  near  a  wood, 
swaying  in  the  wind  and  turning  his  alert  little  head 
to  all  the  points  of  the  compass.  Then  he  would 
suddenly  drop  down  from  his  perch  in  the  manner  of 
the  fly-catcher  and  hurl  himself  upon  a  crane-fly  on  the 
top  of  the  meadow-grasses  and  then  back  again,  the 
robber  baron  surveying  the  countryside  from  the  look- 
out of  his  stronghold.  I  never  found  his  skewered 
larder.  But  charming  bird  as  he  is  in  his  soft  grey, 
cream  and  chestnut  livery,  with  a  conspicuous  black 
stripe  (like  a  pirate  flag)  over  his  eye,  he  looks  all 
the  bold,  bad  villain  of  the  piece.  So  confident,  even 
disdainful  was  my  bird,  that  he  allowed  me  to  creep  within 
half  a  dozen  yards  of  him  with  very  little  trouble. 

Indeed,  the  one  defect  of  this  bird-showered  land  was 
that  there  were  no  nightingales.  According  to  the  tales 
of  town  and  village  they  swarmed,  and  I  frequently  had 
their  songs  pointed  out  to  me  by  local  experts.  But 
that  year  they  were  all  temporarily  occupying  the  forms 
of  robins,  wrens  and  thrushes.1  But  the  bird-watcher 
does  not  hope  over  much,  for  being  wise  in  his  generation 
he  lives  upon  things  not  expected,  knowing  that  if  he 
miss  something  for  which  he  looked,  he  will  be  com- 
pensated by  something  out  of  range  of  his  hope.  One  day 
I  was  trying  to  fit  a  pied  bird-form  to  the  loud  double  chuck 
of  a  greater  spotted  woodpecker  in  front  of  me,  when 
happening  to  look  downwards  to  see  where  I  was  going,  I 
saw  a  swallow  sitting  in  the  road,  not  injured,  for  presently 
it  got  up  and  flew  away,  to  return  and  sit  down  again  in 
the  same  place.  Here  was  a  problem,  for  the  swallow  was 
not  dusting.  Was  it,  perhaps,  a  female  and  egg-bound,  or 
caught  away  from  the  nest  by  a  desire  to  lay  ? 

Occupied  with  this  queer  conduct,  I  came  homewards, 
passing  the  swallows  swooping  down  to  bathe  in  the 
moat  and  then  up  again,  shaking  themselves  in  the 
air ;  watching  the  swifts  tearing  and  screaming  round 

1  The  following  year  I  heard  one  in  a  small  copse  half  a  mile 
from  the  town.  He  was  a  very  inferior  performer,  the  poorest 
I  have  ever  heard. 


64         BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

the  cathedral  tower  in  their  evening  gambols,  and  the 
daws  sitting  and  making  love  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
saints  on  the  majestic  west  front,  while  the  young 
clamoured  from  somewhere  at  their  backs.  So  home 
at  dusk  from  all  the  wildness  and  freedom  of  bird-life 
about  me,  to  view  this  scene  of  domestic  bliss,  no  more 
inappropriate  to  the  massive  dignity  of  the  pile  than  to 
my  own  mood  of  rest  and  shelter. 

The  ducks  on  the  moat  were  on  the  borderland 
between  wild  and  tame,  and  their  actions  after  pairing 
were  consequently  of  great  interest.  They  face  one 
another,  and  rising  upon  their  tails  from  the  water 
wave  their  wings  in  vigorous  exultation  before  settling 
down  again.  In  performing  this  rite  of  consummation — 
for  a  ceremony  it  unquestionably  is — their  wing-beats 
keep  exact  time  and  measure,  and  each  bird  sinks  down 
upon  the  water  at  the  same  moment  as  the  other.  Now 
just  as  evolution  has  elaborated  the  colours  of  birds 
and  set  them  in  harmonious  contrast  and  gradation 
against  one  another,  so  the  movements  of  birds  during 
the  nuptial  season  tend  to  become  more  and  more 
patterned  and  ritualistic — conventionalized  in  fact — just 
as  a  poem  is  a  conventionalized  arrangement  of  feet 
and  rhymes,  a  machinery  to  extract  the  full  honey 
from  the  raw  material  of  language.  In  the  raw  material 
of  time,  when  birds  were  maladroit  in  the  air  and  dull 
in  plumage,  their  loves  were  no  doubt  a  mere  scramble 
of  desire,  unattended  by  order  and  beauty.  That  these 
rhythmic  designs  of  movement  should  survive  the 
degeneracy  of  semi-domestication  is  not  only  an  evidence 
of  their  tenacity,  but  of  nature's  artistic  purposes  upon 
her  animate  creation. 

Down  the  moat,  between  the  old  wall  embroidered 
with  ivy-leaved  toadflax  and  crowned  with  the  vinous- 
pink,  white  and  purple  clusters  of  comfrey  and  many 
other  damp-loving  plants,  the  swans  would  pass  in 
procession  with  their  three  cygnets  behind  them.  A 
water-hen  was  in  charge  of  three  chicks  and  a  duck  of 
eight,  and  as  the  pageant  advances  the  water-hen 
summons  her  little  black  folk  into  the  ivy  of  the  bank, 
and  the  duck  gives  an  imperative  cluck  to  her  yellow 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  65 

brood  scampering  after  the  flies,  and  they  retire  under 
a  branch  overhanging  the  water.  The  royal  tyrants 
pass  on  their  way,  and  out  come  the  households  of  the 
humbler  citizens  to  pursue  the  daily  round. 

In  the  old  elms  lining  the  banks  of  the  moat,  in  the 
holes  of  which  blue-tits,  wrens  and  starlings  nest,  the 
rooks  are  putting  the  finishing  touches  to  their  houses 
on  April  1st,  and  the  hens  are  beginning  to  sit.  Both 
sexes  assist  in  the  furnishing,  the  cock-bird  arriving 
with  a  twig,  presenting  it  to  the  hen,  and  then  jumping 
eagerly  into  the  nest  to  help  her  place  it  in  position. 
In  wet  weather  the  rookery  is  not  half  so  gay,  the 
birds  sitting  mot!  .nless  and  silent  on  the  branches, 
occasionally  shaking  the  rain  off  their  feathers.  The 
daws  which  mingle  with  the  rooks  in  the  fields  never 
use  the  rookery  elms  as  perching  places  unless  the 
rooks  are  all  away,  which  very  rarely  happens. 

These  daws  had  an  evening  market-place  on  the 
top  of  a  large  plane  opposite  the  rookery  and  on  the 
other  side  of  the  moat.  Suddenly  from  fifty  to  sixty 
birds  detach  themselves  from  the  cathedral  tower  and 
settle  on  the  plane.  There  they  sit  silent  for  a  while, 
until  without  apparent  reason  a  storm  of  emotion  rushes 
through  them  and  they  burst  into  a  loud  chorus  of 
metallic  voices.  But  sometimes  this  emotionalism  takes 
a  different  form.  Without  being  in  any  way  alarmed 
or  disturbed,  they  all  at  once  leave  the  tree  simultaneously, 
advance  in  a  solid  column  over  the  tops  of  the  rookery 
elms,  stop  dead  in  the  air,  and,  separating  into  two 
wings,  fly  back  upon  the  plane.  Then  the  same  thing 
occurs  again,  and  so  may  do  half  a  dozen  times.  The 
instantaneousness  of  these  cries  and  movements,  the 
discipline  of  the  short  flight  and  the  concerted  action 
seemed  inexplicable  to  me  except  by  the  theory  of 
telepathic  communication,  evolved  out  of  centuries  of 
social  intercourse,  for  I  could  detect  no  signs  of  leader- 
ship. A  tidal  wave  of  emotion  does  sweep  over  them ; 
a  call  to  leave  the  tree  does  summon  them,  not  in  singles 
or  small  parties,  but  the  whole  body,  and  the  one  is 
unseen,  the  other  unheard.  Another  thought-provoking 
circumstance  was  that  though  the  birds  were  then  swept 

5 


66        BIRDS  OF   THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

into  a  company  movement  and  acted  in  unanimity  and 
as  a  corporate  body,  yet  as  soon  as  they  returned  to  the 
trees,  they  alighted  in  couples,  each  pair  close  together 
and  separated  from  the  other  pairs.  The  interrelation 
between  the  social  functions  and  domestic  individualism 
of  the  species  was  in  fact  presented  in  dramatic  form 
and  as  a  kind  of  alternating  rhythm.  The  personal 
and  sexual  identity  dived,  as  it  were,  and  then  reappeared 
on  the  surface. 

Ill 

Between  the  middle  of  June  and  the  middle  of 
September  practically  all  the  interest  of  inland  bird- 
life  disappears.  Fields  and  groves  have  no  offerings 
for  eye  or  ear,  and  the  drooping,  browning  foliage  is  a 
sanatorium  for  avian  patients  undergoing  their  seasonal 
moult.  Then  suddenly,  this  anxious  period  over, 
they  stream  gaily  and  tumultuously  out  of  their  leafy 
shelters,  invading  the  open  spaces  once  more — I  had 
almost  said  like  a  carnival  throng  in  Southern  Europe — 
but  for  our  impoverishment  in  brightly  plumaged  native 
birds  during  the  last  fifty  and  a  hundred  years.  From 
then  until  the  beginning  of  November  or  later,  and  all 
through  the  winter,  if  there  are  prolonged  frosts,  take 
place  those  complicated  and  internal  migratory  move- 
ments which  affect  all  our  resident  species.  So  I 
returned  in  autumn  to  this  diminutive  city  of  birds  to 
meet  them. 

One  afternoon,  a  small  colony  of  half  a  dozen  sand- 
pipers delayed  their  migration  on  the  moat  before  passing 
onwards.  Sandpipers  are  rare  enough  anywhere  in  the 
south  ;  in  southern  towns  they  must  be  nearly  legendary. 
They  flew  about  the  moat  like  miniature  mallards, 
though  so  much  speedier  and  more  versatile  upon  their 
sharply  pointed  wings.  Occasionally  they  would  turn 
like  a  swallow  and  expose  the  pure,  conspicuous  white 
of  the  underparts,  uttering  all  the  time  in  concert  their 
high,  clear,  musical,  triple  and  quadruple  whistle.  Their 
gay  visitation  was  made  in  the  kingfisher's  estate,  and 
he,  I  believe,  breeds  regularly  within  five  minutes'  walk 
of  the  market-place,  though  the  young  are  frequently 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  67 

killed  by  the  swans.  I  often  used  to  see  him  speeding 
straight  as  an  arrow  along  the  middle  of  the  moat,  the 
azure  of  the  back  brighter  than  the  fourteenth-century 
glass  I  had  been  looking  at  in  the  north  transept  of 
the  cathedral.  Sometimes  this  Hylas  of  the  moat  would 
perch  on  a  bush  over  the  water  with  the  sun  riding 
on  his  back,  where  he  would  remain  quite  motionless, 
a  jewelled  figure  of  oriental  tapestry,  but  in  the  spirit 
of  life  dulling  the  fine  colours  of  the  paint-box. 

Autumn,  indeed,  is  almost  as  good  a  time  as  spring 
to  potter  about  this  favoured  town,  escaping  for  a 
moment  these  sombre  months  and  years  in  the 
history  of  man.  The  saints  stand  at  peace  in  their 
arcades  along  the  west  front  of  this  most  human  of 
cathedrals,  and  the  birds,  what  with  abundance  of 
food,  the  sorrows  of  winter  and  migration  ahead,  and 
the  toilsome  responsibilities  of  parenthood  behind,  go 
about  their  business  in  a  light-hearted,  pleasuring  spirit, 
in  which  the  necessities  of  life  play  a  smiling  part. 
Their  losses  are  forgotten,  nor  yet  is  there  any  fading 
in  the  attentions  of  lovers  to  one  another,  even  though 
the  social,  the  packing  instinct  begins  to  drive  a  wedge 
into  family  life. 

Wagtails  were  collecting  on  the  green  before  the 
west  front,  as  they  were  in  the  cloister-garth,  the 
tombstones  of  which  were  perches  for  the  fly- catchers. 
These  wagtails  had  acclimatized  themselves  to  the 
atmosphere  of  the  building  almost  as  perfectly  as  the 
"  ecclesiastical  daws."  They  darted  among  the  gables, 
turrets,  buttresses  and  parapets  of  the  cathedral,  hovering 
perhaps  before  some  fine  tracery  of  foliage  like  humming 
birds  above  a  forest  orchid.  Then  away  they  would 
go  over  a  wall  or  under  a  cornice  with  that  whirligig, 
convulsive  movement  of  body  and  tail,  which  throws 
out  flashes  of  black,  grey  and  white.  Swallows  and 
martins  were  assembling  in  hundreds,  keeping  more 
or  less  separate,  the  moth-like  martins  preferring  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  water,  the  swallows  sweeping  the 
lawns  and  greens  an  inch  from  the  ground,  occasionally 
disturbing  the  wagtails  (who  would  take  a  little  skip 
out  of  the  way)  and  looking  from  above  like  enormous 


68        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

purple  flies.  Then,  obeying  some  secret  message  (thought 
transference  seems  the  only  explanation),  they  would 
rise  in  a  body  and  scatter  all  over  the  irregular  contour 
of  the  grey  stone,  like  butterflies  about  the  flowers. 

It  was  fine  to  wander  round  the  buildings  grouped 
into  that  subtle  proportion  of  line,  space  and  mass 
which  gives  the  cathedral  its  supremacy  above  all 
others — a  supremacy  which  even  the  restorer's  ugly,  thin, 
bluish  shafts  adorning  the  west  front  like  gutter  pipes 
can  hardly  mar — and  watch  the  wild,  giddy  flights  of 
the  swallows,  the  daws,  the  wagtails  and  the  starlings 
about  them.  Impressions  are  both  contrasted  and 
harmonious — volume  and  delicacy,  intensity  and  repose, 
solemnity  and  dashing  speed  side  by  side,  art  and 
nature  united  in  religion. 

Art  and  nature  are  indeed  but  parts  of  the  same 
objective  reality ;  they  achieve  the  same  results,  they 
employ  the  same  methods  and  work  to  the  same 
glorious  end — the  survival  of  the  soul,  since  in  the 
crowded  multiplicity  of  life  it  alone  in  all  its  appearances 
is  the  best  fitted  to  survive.  Therefore,  when  I  saw 
a  woman  in  the  nave  with  a  pair  of  tern's  wings  in 
her  hat,  I  was  right  to  see  in  her  a  blasphemer,  and 
one  in  spirit  with  the  vandals  who  cast  down  the 
statues  in  the  first  tier  of  the  west  front.  What  did 
she  there,  with  her  plunder  of  the  rich  genius  of  God, 
to  display  the  foulness  of  mankind  in  the  place  of  its 
splendour  ?  Truly,  man  is  the  incomparable  monarch 
of  the  world,  both  in  the  height  of  his  greatness  and 
the  abyss  of  his  vileness.  Nevertheless,  the  natural 
historian  of  animal  life — mammal  (including  man,  of 
course),  bird  and  insect — must  tread  warily  in  his 
judgments.  Civilizations  have  their  seasons,  their  green, 
brown  and  yellow  leaf,  and  ours,  its  labours  accomplished, 
now  hangs  like  a  rotten  plum  on  the  tree  of  life.  But 
another  civilization  overlaps  it  and  will  catch  up  the 
sifted  value  of  its  heritage,  and  in  its  turn  will  give 
place  before  another,  the  civilization  perhaps  of  some 
humble  race  unconscious  yet  of  its  birthright,  until  we 
are  brought  safely  home  at  last.  The  word  of  God, 
or,  as  we  call  it  nowadays,  evolution,  is  at  the  back 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  69 

of  all  life,  with  its  persistent  command — "  You've  got 
to  be  good,  and  you've  got  to  find  out  what  good  is," 
or  you  shall  die.  Every  living  creature  answers  the 
call  upon  it  according  to  its  capacities,  but  we  are  failing 
to  make  our  responses  to  new  and  higher  calls  made  upon 
us,  and  the  wages  of  failure  is  death.  Yet  to  be  cast  down 
at  the  evil  of  our  times  is  to  lose  our  sense  of  horizons,  to 
neglect  the  circumference  for  the  centre  of  the  circle,  and 
to  forget  that  the  surprising  thing  is  not  the  amount  of  ill 
in  the  world,  but  of  good.  We  have  been  barbarians  for  a 
year  and  semi-civilized  beings  for  a  day,  and  God  must  be 
given  his  own  time  to  make  his  work  good.  Only  he 
thinks  it  time  we  said  good-bye  to  barbarism. 

The  fascination  of  the  town  are  its  daws  and  rooks. 
The  former,  known  as  the  "  Bishop's  Jacks,"  to  distin- 
guish them  from  the  "  Ebor  Jacks,"  which  breed  two 
miles  away  in  the  Mendips,  are  at  their  best  in  autumn 
in  the  early  morning  and  evening,  when  the  day's  busi- 
ness in  the  fields  is  over  or  before  them,  and  the  recrea- 
tions of  leisure  are  in  full  swing.  In  the  evening  they 
straggle  homewards  "  in  scramble  sort  "  with  the  rooks 
(with  whom  they  feed),  the  calm,  regular,  sonorous  bass 
of  the  latter  contrasted  with  the  ringing  staccato  and 
sprightly  barking  cries  of  the  daws,  volleyed  crisply 
from  one  angle  of  the  stone  to  another. 

Daws  are  the  most  boyish,  mischievous,  impish, 
happy-go-lucky  and  mirthful  of  all  the  crows.  It  is 
pleasant  indeed  to  think  of  this  boyishness  in  conjunction 
with  the  antiquity  of  the  cathedral,  and  again  to  think 
of  these  daws  as  older  than  any  cathedral,  and  the 
cathedral  itself  eternally  young  in  art.  But  the  cathedral 
histories  have  nothing  to  say  of  the  daws,  as  in  the 
descriptions  of  Bishop  Still's  black  marble  tomb  they 
have  nothing  to  say  of  his  black-lettered  ditty.1  The 
irreverent  sportiveness  of  the  daws,  whether  they  are 
diving,  soaring,  floating  or  tumbling  up  in  their  blue 
pastures  or  about  the  great  central  tower,  or  sitting 
clamouring  on  the  heads  and  shoulders  of  the  holy 

1  Actually  he  did  not  write  it,  but  that  does  not  exonerate  the 
ecclesiastics,  since  only  of  very  recent  years  has  it  been  shown 
that  Still's  song  has  been  drawn  illicitly  from  him. 


70        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

saints  marshalled  along  the  west  front,  seems  to  mock 
everything  that  is  pompous  and  consequential. 

The  daws,  too,  have  a  special  game  of  their  own.  A 
pair  of  them  pursues  a  third  with  shrill,  metallic  cries. 
The  quarry  takes  refuge  in  a  hole  or  cranny,  and  the 
hunters  then  perch  above  it,  craning  their  necks  over 
it,  their  sorcerers'  eyes  alive  with  gleeful  cunning.  Then 
the  hideling  daw  cautiously  stretches  out  a  neck  and 
suddenly  makes  a  bolt  for  it,  the  others  scrambling  off 
their  perches  and  taking  up  the  chase  again  in  full  cry. 
They  dash  into  the  holes  at  full  speed  and  with  marvellous 
precision,  being  suddenly  blotted  out,  as  if  the  grey 
walls  had  some  magical  power  of  invisibility.  Another 
game  is  to  lay  an  ambush  for  one  of  their  fellows  and 
suddenly  to  dash  out  at  him  from  behind  some  corner, 
pillar  or  gable.  Parties  of  them,  again,  often  form  a 
solid  body  and  conduct  a  series  of  aerial  manoeuvres 
and  evolutions,  flying  with  great  velocity,  and  obey 
the  telepathic  word  of  command  to  wheel  with  a  unanimity 
as  mysterious  as  it  is  beautiful. 

I  used  to  watch  the  rooks  feeding  on  a  large  field 
adjoining  the  town,  and  it  was  interesting  to  see  the 
social  blending  with  the  sexual  instinct.  There  they 
were  stalking  or  idling  or  sunning  themselves  with 
bodies  prone  to  the  ground,  wings  unfurled  and  heads 
and  necks  outstretched  upon  the  ground.  But  though 
the  first  mists  were  already  throwing  grey  scarves  over 
the  cathedral  towers,  they  were  still  making  love ;  some 
of  them  were  actually  pairing ;  some  standing  shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  their  heads  towards  one  another  and 
mandibles  interlocked,  kissing  in  fact ;  others  bowing  to 
their  partners  with  bills  buried  in  the  grass,  tails  expanded 
and  lower  parts  raised  high  in  the  air ;  others  gravely 
perambulating  round  and  round  their  mates.  It  was  not 
so  much  courtship  as  somewhat  sugary  marital  bliss. 

It  is  known,  of  course,  that  some  of  our  native 
species  pair  for  life,  and  a  recent  essay  of  Mr.  Hudson's — 
Do  Starlings  Pair  for  Life  ? — adds  a  highly  social  species 
to  the  number.  I  think  he  proves  his  case,  and  if  he 
does,  he  has  cracked  the  hardest  nut  of  scepticism 
about  other  species,  whose  habits  are  imperfectly  known, 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  71 

also  pairing  for  life.  For  starlings  are  one  of  the  most 
social  of  all  birds,  and  if  the  marital  identity  is  not 
lost  in  the  immense  communal  gatherings  of  winter, 
it  is  the  more  likely  to  be  maintained  among  species 
less  gregarious.  There  is  no  practical  reason  why  the 
sexual  should  run  counter  to  the  social  instinct,  and 
linnets,  sheld-drake,  rooks  (as  egrets,  weaver-birds,  flam- 
ingoes, ibises,  etc.,  among  foreign  birds,  not  to  mention 
most  of  the  sea-birds)  preserve  the  latter  even  when 
the  sexual  excitement  is  most  intense  in  spring.  It 
is  indeed  still  more  wonderful  that  the  herding  instinct 
should  not  swamp  all  closer  individual  ties  rather  than 
vice  versa,  but  I  believe  that  if  more  evidence  were 
collected  on  this  head,  it  would  be  proved  what  we  can 
only  now  divine  or  test  in  a  few  species,  that  many 
monogamous  birds  are  faithful  to  their  mates  and  do 
not  forget  them  even  when  circumstances  separate  them 
for  a  while  (as  with  chaffinches  in  some  districts  and 
some  migrants  where  the  males  arrive  before  the  females), 
or  when  the  sense  of  community  is  in  full  flood.  Why  not  ? 
Why  should  we  assume  in  our  arrogance  that  love's  fidelity 
is  a  sole  moral  privilege  of  the  human  genus,  and  that  in 
the  non-human  races,  genuine,  durable  love  is  only  a  fancy 
name  for  the  reproductive  instinct.  It  may  be  that 
Courthope  (Paradise  of  Birds)  was  not  too  far  wrong : — 

Their  bonds  never  gall, 

Though  the  leaves  shoot  and  fall, 

And  the  seasons  roll  round  in  their  course, 

For  their  marriage  each  year 

Grows  more  lovely  and  dear, 

And  they  know  not  decrees  of  Divorce. 

But  if  more  birds  than  we  think  choose  a  partner  for 
life,  the  business  of  wooing  must  surely  be  much  more 
important  than  we  suppose.1  Even  among  polygamous 
species  like  ruffs,  birds  of  paradise,  etc.,  the  wonderful 
colours  and  ornaments  acquired  through  sexual  selection 
could  not  have  been  thus  evolved  if  pairing  were  the 

1  See  Mr.  Julian  Huxley's  admirable  paper  in  the  Proceedings 
of  the  Zoological  Society  upon  the  courtship  of  the  Great  Crested 
Grebe.  It  is  something  very  like  the  wooing  and  marriage  of 
human  couples. 


72        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

perfunctory  affair  many  naturalists  have  supposed  it. 
Elaboration  of  colouring  must  be  collateral  with  that 
of  courtship.  A  fortiori,  where  species  are  known  to 
pair  for  life  (viz.  the  hawks),  the  preliminaries  must 
call  forth  a  deal  more  of  character,  effort,  emotion  and 
drama  than  we  are  willing  to  grant  or  than  evidence 
exists  to  prove. 

IV 

I  had  many  adventures  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
town.  I  would  pass  half  a  dozen  grey  wagtails, 
sprites  of  the  waterfall,  at  the  east  end  of  the 
bishop's  palace,  darting  along  the  bank  and  leaping 
into  the  air  to  catch  flies.  The  black  cravat  topping 
the  bright  yellow  waistcoat  had  already  disappeared, 
as  a  lover  puts  off  his  airs  when  his  mistress  adorns  his 
home  and  rears  his  children.  There  is  a  steep  wood  to 
the  east  of  the  town  under  the  wardenship  of  the 
"  National  Trust "  (who  might  with  advantage  make 
their  notice-boards  legible).  One  day  this  wood  was 
a  forge  of  chiff-chaffs,  hammering  on  their  anvils 
and  bustling  out  their  "  Come  quick,  come  quick "  to 
their  fellows,  to  be  ready  to  set  off  for  distant  lands. 
There  were  perhaps  a  couple  of  hundred  of  them,  all 
the  chiff-chaffs  of  the  thousands  of  trees  for  miles 
round.  But  best  of  all  was  a  family  party  of  the 
beautiful  black-and-gold-banded  siskin,  whose  rather 
hoarse,  querulous  double-note — "  why  see,  why  see  '- 
(Howard  Saunders  renders  zeisig) — I  listened  to 
some  time  before  seeing  the  birds.  Four  of  them  were 
young,  with  colours  much  duller  than  the  parent  birds, 
themselves  fallen  from  the  brightness  of  the  nuptial 
state.  I  cannot  but  believe,  therefore,  that  they  nested 
here.  Siskins  are  not  shy,  but  so  restless  that  as  they 
go  prancing  from  tree  to  tree,  making  a  gymnasium 
of  them  like  tits,  one  has  much  ado  to  keep  up  with 
them.  I  wonder  how  many  of  the  worthy  citizens  of  the 
town  are  aware  that  in  1919  a  pair  of  siskins  reared 
their  young  successfully  probably  within  five  minutes' 
walk  of  their  bishop's  palace  walls.  For  siskins  breeding 
in  the  south  are  rare,  and  I  believe  there  are  no  records 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  73 

for  Somerset.  I  can  only  pray  that  if  they  breed  in 
the  neighbourhood  another  year  they  will  escape  the 
collector  (not  to  mention  bird-catchers,  urchins  and 
local  "  sportsmen "),  that  covetous  pedant  with  his 
glass  case  for  skin  or  egg,  for  ever  on  the  prowl. 

Now,  again,  it  would  be  a  nuthatch  flying  out  from 
an  oak,  tweaking  off  an  acorn,  carrying  it  to  a  branch, 
riveting  it  into  some  crevice,  and  then  hammer  away, 
swinging  the  whole  body  to  the  blow.  The  birds  were 
very  blithe  and  active  that  warm  and  windless  autumn, 
and  one  would  constantly  blunder  into  a  bubbling  centre 
of  life  in  a  glade  or  in  some  broad  pathway  in  the  woods. 
Then  to  and  fro  ran  little  contented  exclamations  and 
broken  bursts  of  song  and  flying  shapes  darting  across 
the  open  space  or  rustling  like  wind-blown  leaves  among 
the  foliage.  Suddenly  all  is  still ;  the  breeze  of  warm 
and  vibrant  life  dies  away. 

At  one  time  I  was  privileged  to  be  a  witness  at  a 
very  curious  drama  of  wild  life.  A  sparrow-hawk  was 
in  pursuit  of  a  pied  wagtail  flying  in  its  erratic  way 
with  shrill  screams  of  terror,  quite  different  from  the 
chiz  zic  of  normal  happiness.  The  chase  took  the  birds 
to  a  tall  elm,  and  by  a  clever  double  back  into  the 
foliage,  the  wagtail  evaded  the  rush  of  the  hawk,  who, 
not  being  able  to  turn  quickly  enough,  swung  out  past 
the  tree.  But  then,  to  my  astonishment,  I  saw  against 
the  tree  the  wagtail's  mate  in  close  pursuit  of  the  hawk 
and  uttering  the  familiar  cry,  not  in  terror  as  his  or 
her  lover  uttered  it,  but  in  rage,  indignation  and  defiance. 
The  hawk  gave  it  up  and  went  over  the  scruff  of  the 
hill,  still  pursued  by  little  David,  whose  love  was  hidden 
in  the  leaves  of  the  elm.  This  strange  incident  was 
especially  interesting  to  me,  for  I  have  observed  that 
swallow  and  pied  wagtail  pursue  hawks  more  often 
than  other  species,  and  that  the  pied  wagtail  is  the 
most  fearless  and  dashing.  I  have  related  other  incidents 
of  the  same  kind  elsewhere  in  this  book,  but  I  may  say 
here  that  I  have  seen  the  pied  wagtail  (sometimes  alone, 
sometimes  with  his  comrades)  furiously  at  the  heels 
of  the  Philistine  as  often  out  of  the  breeding  season 
as  in  it.  His  abrupt  and  conscious  shouts  of  sibilant 


74        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

triumph  when  he  returns  from  chasing  the  discomfited 
kestrel  or  sparrow-hawk  (whom  I  have  never  seen  attempt 
to  turn  on  him)  are  extremely  comical — young  Jack 
the  Giant  Killer  sounding  his  penny  whistle. 

One  day  I  spent  the  morning  and  afternoon  exploring 
the  vale  of  Avalon,  that  flat,  grassy  plain,  intersected 
by  dykes  with  rows  of  pollarded  willows  and  starred 
and  lined  with  clumps  of  poplar  and  elm  and  hedges 
of  elderberry  and  thorn.  I  sat  down  on  the  river 
bank,  and  a  party  of  five  crows  came  sauntering  by, 
so  mentally  alert,  so  deceptively  casual,  a  thing  you 
hardly  ever  see  in  the  country — only  in  London.  Then 
out  of  the  misty  blue  a  heron  came  sweeping  and  circling 
round,  flying  low  nearly  over  my  head.  No  sooner  had 
he  passed  the  elms  whither  the  crows  had  retired, 
than  out  they  leaped  at  him,  for  all  the  world  as  though 
they  had  laid  an  ambush  for  him.  He  quickened  his 
flight  and  rose,  but  they,  beating  their  wings  rapidly 
and  in  great  excitement,  climbed  above  him  and  made 
stoops  at  him.  His  royalty  was  not  so  much  alarmed 
as  disconcerted,  and  not  so  much  disconcerted  as  incon- 
venienced. He  gave  a  load  squawk  of  annoyance, 
stretched  out  his  neck,  made  a  half-turn  and  pursued 
his  course  with  redoubled  speed,  the  crows  pelting  after 
him  in  vain  and  then  giving  up  the  chase.  The  crows, 
I  am  certain,  were  worrying  him  out  of  pure  mischief, 
and  looked  like  urchins  of  the  air  beside  him.  Then, 
to  my  surprise,  down  came  the  heron  into  the  paddock 
of  a  farm,  and  after  walking  about  under  some  willows, 
like  a  mimsy  among  the  borogroves,  settled  down 
comfortably  to  rest.  Some  minutes  after  his  mate 
appeared  from  the  same  direction,  and  the  same  incident 
was  precisely  repeated,  half-turn,  thrust  out  neck,  harsh, 
powerful  cry,  pursuit  and  all.  The  second  heron  caught 
sight  of  her  mate,  and  holding  her  vans  rigid,  circled 
about  fifty  feet  above  him.  He  craned  out  his  neck, 
followed  the  course  of  his  mate,  and  then  climbed  upon 
his  legs  and  took  off  after  her,  being  instantly  trans- 
formed from  fantasticalness  to  grandeur.  I  was  told 
that  being  of  no  "  use,"  the  herons  of  this  district  are 
greatly  persecuted,  and  will  soon  be  extirpated  unless 
something  is  done  to  save  them. 


A  CITY   OF   BIRDS  75 

There  were  but  few  birds  in  the  vale — small  colonies 
of  linnets  and  whinchats  and  occasional  commoner 
species.  How  this  wide  land  has  fallen  from  its  ancient 
population,  when  the  watcher,  looking  out  over  the 
water  into  the  cobalt  blue  of  the  horizon,  where  the 
Mendips,  mantled  in  softest  lavender,  lie  like  thickened 
shapes  of  cloud,  would  see  between  him  and  them 
thick  and  glorious  squadrons  of  duck,  spoonbill,  bittern, 
harrier,  night,  squacco,  purple,  buff-backed  and  common 
heron,  crane,  grebe,  swan,  ibis,  stork,  osprey,  stilt,  godwit, 
snipe,  curlew,  egret,  and  many  another,  clouding  the 
sky  with  their  multitudes,  shaking  marsh  and  mere 
with  their  cries,  and  now  passed  away  for  ever,  leaving 
him  to  fill  some  few  of  the  empty  spaces  with  falling 
leaves,  like  flocks  of  finches  sailing  down  from  the  trees 
to  feed. 

Back  in  the  town  I  found  a  large  party  of  yellow 
wagtails  assembled  for  migration  in  a  meadow  between 
the  High  Street  and  the  station.  Yet  it  is  an  ornitho- 
logical axiom  that  they  never  come  about  human 
habitations.  They  were  obliging  enough  to  come  within 
five  yards  of  where  I  stood  watching  them,  to  the 
mild  wonder  of  the  good  citizens  of  the  town.  Their 
methods  of  feeding  are  very  intriguing.  Every  now  and 
again  one  of  them  would  cease  from  desultory  picking 
and  grow  stiff  and  point  like  a  spaniel.  Then  he  would 
make  an  incredibly  rapid,  twinkling  run  for  two  or  three 
yards,  and  there  was  a  small,  dark  object  at  the  tip  of 
his  bill.  The  grace  and  elasticity  of  the  performance  were 
indescribable,  and  one  could  but  sigh  for  those  worthy 
citizens  who  missed  so  fairy-like  an  entertainment  at  their 
very  doors.  The  other  wagtails  go  through  something  of 
the  same  action,  but  it  is  much  less  formal  and  detached. 

One  day,  walking  on  the  grassy  uplands,  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  the  town  (where  wheatears  still  lingered, 
in  spite  of  the  season,  and  grows  the  pale  lilac,  six- 
stamened,  meadow  saffron,  leafless  on  its  long  slender 
tube),  I  caught  sight  of  seven  thrush-like  figures  feeding 
in  the  grass.  They  were  taking  long  ungainly  hops, 
then  standing  stock  still  and  driving  the  bill  down  upon 
the  ground  in  quick  succession.  It  was  effective  enough 


76         BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

if  it  worked  out  at  an  ant  per  stab.  Or  they  would 
perch  vertically  on  the  posts  of  a  barbed-wire  fence, 
half  of  the  body  above  the  posts,  half  below,  and  sharply 
silhouetted  against  the  sky.  Or  they  would  take  short 
flights  within  a  few  inches  of  the  ground,  with  never 
a  dip.  Tip  the  body  up,  and  there  was  your  thrush. 
But  that  green  body,  that  short  stiff  tail,  that  black 
face,  scarlet  crown  and  yellow  rump,  so  joyfully  con- 
firming a  little  theory  that  the  green  woodpecker  is 
passing  through  a  transitional  stage  from  a  tree  to  a 
ground-feeding  species,  belonged  to  no  thrush.  Why 
should  it  be  more  advantageous  for  the  yaffle  to  become 
a  ground-feeding  bird,  to  be  modified  structurally  no 
doubt  in  the  far  future,1  in  the  struggle  for  existence  ? 
Possibly  the  answer  is  that  there  is  less  demand  for  the 
ants  on  the  ground  than  the  insects  he  hacks  out  of  the 
bark  of  trees,  and  that  competition  with  other  species 
of  his  old  way  of  life  (barred  and  greater  spotted  wood- 
pecker, oxeye,  wryneck,  nuthatch,  creeper,  even  cole- 
tit)  is  driving  him  to  make  a  corner  in  ants  on  the 
ground.  But  I  do  not  feel  entirely  satisfied  with  that, 
for  his  great  bill  and  long  tongue  should  make  him 
the  monarch  of  the  trunk.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has 
a  substantial  body  to  feed.  My  view  is  that  he  has 
a  flair  for  formic  acid. 

These  are  a  selection  of  my  theatre-going  experiences 
in  and  about  the  town.  Nowhere  else  in  the  country 
(except  in  sanctuaries)  have  I  found  birds  so  numerous 
and  tame,  thanks  not  so  much  to  favourable  natural 
conditions  as  the  kindly,  easy-going  temperament  of 
the  people  of  Somerset.  It  is  extraordinary  how  this 
attitude  of  tolerance  differs  from  county  to  county  in 
England  (from  Cornwall  and  Norfolk,  for  instance).  It  is 
by  no  means  an  active  sympathy — we  are  some  way  from 
that,  and  nobody,  of  course,  dreams  of  teaching  children 
the  meaning  and  value  of  the  intricate  interdependence  of 

1  The  nearly  extinct  South  American  Pampas  Woodpecker 
(Colaptes  Agricola),  which  has  become  a  purely  ground- feeding 
and  ground-living  bird,  has  been  so  modified,  its  legs,  according 
to  Azora  (quoted  by  Hudson)  being  longer  than  those  of  other 
woodpeckers. 


A  CITY  OF  BIRDS  77 

life.  But  this  toleration — indifference  if  you  like — is  free 
of  that  ugly  utilitarian  spirit  which  views  all  life  in  terms 
of  immediate  self-interest,  and  sacrifices  use  and  beauty  to 
its  mean  ends.  And  the  birds  understand  this  and  forgo 
part  of  their  fears  and  gladly  avail  themselves  of  man's 
neutrality,  until  the  hope  that  neutrality  will  one  day 
become  enlightened  sympathy  is  born. 

One  moony  night  I  walked  out  to  where  the  tower 
of  the  cathedral  rose  out  of  the  night,  its  stone 
diaphanous  and  dim,  like  the  substance  of  some  rare 
and  scarce  earthly  thought.  I  turned  up  a  little  close, 
and  heard  a  party  of  girls  singing  in  one  of  a  set  of 
minute  and  beautiful  houses  that  stand  arm  in  arm, 
facing  one  another  across  the  paved  courtyard.  The 
sweet  voices  of  these  happy  girls  flowed  out  of  the 
house  like  a  perfume  into  the  embalmed  air,  where 
the  long  chimneys,  each  of  a  design  different  from  its 
neighbour's,  cut  patterns  out  of  the  fabric  of  space. 
The  cygnets  slept  on  the  moat,  a  thickening  of  the 
diffused  and  ghostly  light,  shapes  of  mother-of-pearl, 
from  which  at  times  rose  gestures  of  expanded  wing 
and  curving  neck,  uplifted  and  then  sinking  back 
upon  the  water.  One  were  the  works  of  man  and 
nature ;  interchangeable  the  separate  quantities  of  sight 
and  sound.  The  one  is  multiplicity,  and  every  living 
thing,  when  passionately  and  perfectly  itself,  is  fused 
into  the  spirit  of  all  things.  It  was  all  music  and 
prayer,  and  the  voices  of  the  singing  girls  seemed  to 
pass  into  the  religious  motions  of  the  cygnets.  The 
world  appeared  "  like  the  King's  daughter,  all  glorious 
within "  ;  only  fantasy  was  real,  and  the  silence  was 
crowded  with  vanished  scenes  and  dead  faces.  Suddenly 
there  burst  upon  this  breathless  calm  a  torrent  of  such 
unholy  shrieks  that  for  the  moment  I  grasped  the  tree 
under  which  I  stood  in  terror.  There,  three  yards 
above  my  head,  was  a  white  owl  screaming  at  me  like 
the  damned.  There  he  perched  and  screamed  at  me 
until  I  shambled  off,  realizing  in  sadness  that  if  we 
are  the  only  creatures  who  can  see  within  creation,  so 
we  are  the  only  ones  who  live  within  it  at  discord  with 
its  mighty  hymn.  For  I  was  banished. 


CHAPTER  IV 
GILBERT    WHITE    AND    SELBORNE 

GILBERT  WHITE  was  born  at  Selborne— the 
straggling  village  in  Hampshire,  lying  in  a  hollow 
beneath  the  "  hangars  "  or  hanging  beech  woods  which 
stretch  for  many  miles  across  the  county,  with  some 
few  dips  into  the  valleys — on  July  18,  1720.  Natura- 
lists and  men  of  letters  alike  have  been  puzzled  to 
account  for  his  immense  popularity.  The  life  of  the 
Rector  of  Selborne  was  monastic  in  its  seclusion,  and 
the  greater  part  of  it  was  spent  in  his  native  village 
in  tranquil  observation  of  "  the  works  of  God  in  the 
creation,"  with  occasional  excursions  into  Lincolnshire, 
Ringmer  by  the  Sussex  Downs,  Switzerland,  Rutland- 
shire, and  eighty  miles  afield  to  fetch  home  his  tortoise, 
Timothy.  He  died  in  1793,  having  accomplished 
nothing  in  his  life  but  a  series  of  letters  to  his  naturalist 
friends,  Daines  Barrington  and  Thomas  Pennant,  which 
were  published  in  quarto,  apparently  upon  their  per- 
suasion, in  1789,  and  dealt  with  the  natural  history  of 
his  parish,  particularly  its  birds,  with  some  account 
of  parochial  antiquities  of  no  value  whatever,  and 
perhaps  only  written  as  a  concession  to  the  Gothic 
play-acting  of  the  age.  Yet  this  shy,  unpretentious 
little  book,  businesslike,  strictly  limited  to  the  subject- 
matter,  utterly  free  from  flourishes,  intellectualisms  and 
philosophic  speculation,  and  as  quiet  as  a  windless  mid- 
summer night,  is  not  only  cherished  and  venerated  by 
the  naturalist,  who  turns  a  blind  eye  to  its  obsolete 
errors,  and  the  man  of  letters,  who  turns  his  to  its  natural 
history,  but  is  really  the  source  of  an  illustrious  phylum. 
It  flowed  through  Edward  Jesse  of  the  Gleanings  (who 
published  a  portion  of  White's  MSS.)  and  his  like,  and 
forked  into  two  branches  about  the  middle  of  last  century, 

78 


GILBERT  WHITE  AND    SELBORNE      79 

the  one  moving  towards  modern  "  humanitarianism," 
the  other  to  the  admirably  precise  field  natural  history, 
which,  almost  overthrown  by  laboratory  and  museum 
specialization,  shows  signs  of  emerging  the  stronger  and 
more  useful  science — not  to  mention  its  graciousness. 

What,  then,  was  White's  achievement  ?  First  of  all, 
one  is  inclined  to  think,  a  triumph  over  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  style,  manner  and  attitude  White  was 
eighteenth  century  to  the  bone — the  best  of  it  in 
maturity,  elegance,  fastidiousness  and  easy,  cultured 
grace.  He  was  "  an  admirer  of  prospects,"  and  church 
spires  he  regarded  "  as  very  necessary  ingredients  in 
an  elegant  landscape."  Of  a  gentleman  much  taken 
with  echoes  : — 

From  a  seat  at  the  centrum  phonicum,  he  and  his  friends  might 
amuse  themselves  sometimes  of  an  evening  with  the  prattle  of 
this  loquacious  nymph,  of  whose  complacency  and  decent  reserve 
more  may  be  said  than  can  with  truth  of  every  individual  of 
her  sex. 

There  is  nothing  amphibian  here  :  the  perfect  urbanity 
of  White's  rusticity  would  have  passed  the  most  exacting 
coffee-house  standards.  But  when  it  comes  to  his 
method,  he  is  as  much  a  stranger  to  his  age  as  Blake 
was,  whom  he  could  as  little  have  understood  as  the 
polite  circles  of  metropolitan  culture  could  have  under- 
stood him  riding  forty  miles  to  see  a  heronry,  or  creep- 
ing about  on  hands  and  knees,  revealing  the  domestic 
secrets  of  the  field  cricket.  Precision  of  statement, 
exactness  of  knowledge  and  observation,  an  absorbed 
interest  and  curiosity  for  the  problems  of  natural  life 
hitherto  untouched  (Willughby's  Ornithology  is  more  a 
legacy  of  the  bestiaries  than  a  prophecy  of  White) — this 
was  bucolic  savagery  to  the  eighteenth  century,  which 
could  be  discreetly  rhapsodical  about  the  nymphs  of 
fancy  who  lived  in  trees,  but  turned  up  its  poetic  nose 
when  the  nymph  of  fancy  was  metamorphosed  into  the 
nuthatch  of  reality.  It  cannot  be  too  often  insisted 
that  the  eighteenth  century  abhorred  facts  and  particu- 
larities :  that  it  had  a  passion  for  the  vague,  the  abstract 
and  the  remote,  which  ultimately  destroyed  all  its 


80        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

standards  and  fashions,  and  made  its  toy  Gothicism  a 
perfectly  natural  development  of  its  decline.  In  spite 
of  its  conformable  style,  it  would  have  ostracized  the 
Natural  History  of  Selborne,  because  its  facts  about  real 
things  were  an  offence  against  good  taste — had  the  work 
ever  come  within  its  radius  of  judgment.  Thus,  White 
accomplished  something  very  notable  when,  as  I  say, 
he  married  urbanity  to  rusticity,  the  fine  gentleman  to 
the  dairymaid,  a  style  like  the  "  placid  and  easy  flight  " 
of  migrating  swallows  with  the  "  life  and  conversation  " 
of  the  swallow  himself. 

White's  actual  discoveries  in  natural  history  have 
been  so  enormously  extended  and  sometimes  displaced 
by  Darwinism  and  all  its  later  consequents  and  per- 
fections that  there  is  a  tendency  to  belittle  them.  We 
think  of  him  as  an  author  who  contributed  to  our  pleasure 
rather  than  our  knowledge.  That  is  an  injustice.  Nor 
is  it  only  in  the  famous  passage  about  earthworms — 
that  "  half  the  birds  and  some  quadrupeds  are  almost 
entirely  supported  by  them,"  that  they  are  the  great 
promoters  of  vegetation  by  boring,  perforating  and 
loosening  the  soil  and  "  rendering  it  pervious  to  rains 
and  the  fibres  of  plants,"  that  worm-casts  are  the  finest 
manure,  and  so  on,  and  that  the  earth  without  them 
would  become  "  cold,  hard-bound  and  void  of  fermen- 
tation, and  consequently  sterile " — that  we  can  read 
prophecy  and  anticipation  of  the  overpowering  revolu- 
tion in  men's  thoughts  about  the  world  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  whose  only  analogy  in  evolu- 
tionary significance  is  the  discovery  of  metals.  "  A 
circumstance  respecting  these  ponds,"  he  says  in  another 
passage  but  rarely  quoted, 

though  by  no  means  peculiar  to  them,  I  cannot  pass  over  in 
silence  ;  and  that  is,  that  instinct  by  which,  in  summer,  all  the 
kine,  whether  oxen,  cows,  calves  or  heifers,  retire  constantly  to 
the  water  during  its  hotter  hours  ;  where,  being  more  exempt 
from  flies,  and  inhaling  the  coolness  of  that  element,  some  belly 
deep,  and  some  only  to  mid-leg,  they  ruminate  and  solace  them- 
selves from  about  ten  in  the  morning  till  four  in  the  afternoon, 
and  then  return  to  their  feeding.  During  this  great  proportion 
of  the  day  they  drop  much  dung,  in  which  insects  nestle,  and  so 
supply  food  for  the  fish,  which  would  be  poorly  subsisted  but  for 


GILBERT  WHITE   AND   SELBORNE      81 

this  contingency.  Thus  Nature,  who  is  a  great  economist,  con- 
verts the  recreation  of  one  animal  to  the  support  of  another ! 

Undoubtedly,  this  is  reading  the  lines  of  the  "  correla- 
tion of  organisms,"  a  vast  system  of  interlinkages  which 
Darwin  himself  hardly  probed  to  its  full  facts  or  philo- 
sophy, but  which,  all  the  same,  is  the  most  important 
enlightenment  of  Darwinism  both  for  the  future  of  the 
human  race  and  a  right  understanding  of  the  universe. 
White,  too,  knew  something  about  adaptations  (when 
he  describes  the  perfect  suitability  of  the  organs  of  the 
Great  Northern  Diver  to  its  needs) ;  he  dimly  realized 
that  "  hunger  and  love "  were  the  two  great  motive 
and  mobile  forces  of  nature's  system ;  he  understood 
that  birds  do  not  increase  in  spite  of  their  prolificacy 
(if  he  had  gone  a  step  further  and  asked  himself  why, 
he  might  have  strode  a  hundred  years) ;  he  declared 
that  "  there  is  a  wonderful  spirit  of  sociality  hi  the 
brute  creation,"  which  is  a  throw-forward  to  Kropotkin's 
Mutual  Aid ;  and  there  are  other  examples. 

Nor  is  it  true  to  say  that  White's  vision  of  the  natural 
world,  as  on  the  whole  a  kind  and  smiling  abode  for 
happy  beings,  was  a  virtue  of  temperament  rather  than 
a  reflection  of  knowledge.  Knowledge  is  useless  and  a 
curse  to  mankind  and  all  life  unless  it  be  rightly  inter- 
preted, and  because  we  have  put  the  accent  on  the 
wrong  word — on  the  "  struggle  "  rather  than  the  "  ex- 
istence," and  again  on  Malthusian  rather  than  actual 
Nature — we  have  no  right  whatever  to  blame  White 
because  he  put  his  accent  on  the  "  existence,"  knowing 
very  little  of  whence  it  came  and  whither  it  goes.  The 
theory  of  incarnadined  Nature's  predacity,  mercilessness 
and  predominance  of  brutal  force,  has  done  uncountable 
havoc  and  mischief  in  the  world  by  presenting  man 
with  a  moral  certificate  for  his  own  rapacious  exploita- 
tions ;  and  if  White  regarded  the  face  of  natural  life 
with  a  delight  and  love  which  lit  it  up  and  seemed  to 
him  to  emanate  from  it,  it  may  be  that  our  further 
knowledge  will  (as  it  is  already  beginning  to)  corrobo- 
rate what  he  divined  and  saw  rather  than  knew.  If 
he  knew  little  of  the  origin  and  growth  of  natural  life, 

6 


82        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

he  understood  it  for  what  it  was,  a  time,  however 
brief,  of  energy,  happiness,  change  and  experiment, 
a  time  of  effort  and  adventure,  in  which  social  life  and 
parental  love  play  an  increasing  and  expanding  part 
in  its  progressive  struggle. 

The  Natural  History  of  Selborne  is  an  inquiry  into 
the  "  life  and  conversation  of  animals,"  and  it  would 
be  a  mistake  to  treat  it  as  something  different  from 
itself — a  record  of  field  observations.  There  is  little 
that  is  old-fashioned  here,  and  the  errors  are  a  guarantee 
of  the  soundness  and  perspicuity  of  White's  judgment. 
He  never  discovered  that  the  swift  is  not  a  congener 
of  the  "  hirundines  " ;  he  never  distinguished  between 
the  tree  and  meadow  pipit ;  he  confused  the  call  notes 
of  the  great  with  the  marsh  tit,  and  he  was  strangely 
unaware  of  the  existence  of  the  cirl  bunting,  though 
it  sings  to  this  day  in  the  little  churchyard  where  he 
lies  buried.  He  knew  the  sedge — that  "  delicate  poly- 
glot " — but  not  the  reed  warbler ;  the  yellow  wagtail 
and  the  whinchat,  but  not  that  they  were  migrants ; 
and  he  is  sorely  tempted  by  the  theory  that  martins 
and  swallows  pass  the  winter  in  crannies  and  holes  and 
at  the  bottoms  of  ponds,  a  wildness  of  hypothesis  he 
would  not  have  entertained  for  a  moment  had  he 
possessed  an  A  B  C  knowledge  of  anatomy.  And  White 
was  quite  right  to  be  puzzled  about  the  sudden  appear- 
ances of  a  few  swallows  and  martins  on  a  warm  winter's 
day. 

But  these  nugce  antiques  are  a  featherweight  against 
his  enrichment  of  natural  history.  In  bulk  his 
letters  are  indeed  extraordinarily  free  of  blunders  and 
howlers,  and  British  zoology  owes  a  great  deal  more 
to  him  than  the  discovery  of  the  harvest  mouse,  as 
English  literature  owes  a  great  deal  more  to  him  than 
an  initiation  into  the  mastery  of  letter-writing.  He 
wrote  charming  and  faithful  sketches  of  caprimulgus ; 
he  found  out  that  the  sexes  of  chaffinches  separate 
in  the  winter ;  he  was  the  first  to  distinguish  wood- 
wren,  willow-wren  and  chiff-chaff,  and  other  fine  things 
too  numerous  to  mention.  Natural  knowledge  prac- 
tically begins  with  Gilbert  White,  just  as  he  is  the 


GILBERT  WHITE  AND   SELBORNE      83 

first  writer  to  convey  it  by  means  of  a  persuasive 
literary  form.  This  latter  he  owes  as  much  to  the 
accident  of  historical  origin  as  to  his  genius,  since  the 
age  of  specialization,  with  its  exclusive  priesthood  and 
oracles  of  jargon,  had  not  yet  possessed  the  field.  The 
admirable  little  monographs  he  wrote  on  his  darling 
"  hirundines  "  are  models  both  of  accurate  observation 
and  precise  language,  and  the  literary  man,  the  naturalist 
and  the  humanitarian  might  well  join  hands  over  his 
grave  in  homage  to  the  ancestor  of  their  common 
understanding,  purposes  and  interests.  The  man  who 
was  "  touched  with  a  secret  delight  "  to  "  observe  with 
how  much  ardour  and  punctuality  these  poor  little 
birds  (swallows)  obeyed  the  strong  impulse  towards 
migration "  was  a  lover  who  acquired  knowledge  by 
the  spur  of  his  affections,  who  grew  more  fond  by  the 
increasing  of  his  knowledge,  and  who  fused  his  love  and 
his  knowledge  by  the  power  and  subtlety  of  an  appro- 
priate artistic  method. 

White  found  out  these  secrets  of  life  and  expression 
by  a  kind  of  natural  force  and  amiability  of  personality 
which  give  distinction,  weight,  and  discernment  to  his 
observations  and  an  unforced  balance  and  liveliness  of 
movement  to  his  polished  style.  To  put  a  writer's 
lastingness  down  to  his  personality  is  rather  begging 
the  question,  but  in  a  peculiar  way  White's  book  is 
all  the  man  and  the  whole  man.  No  writer  is  less 
self-conscious  and  individualist,  or  more  objective  in 
the  sense  that  his  whole  mind,  heart  and  skill  were 
devoted  to  revealing  something  quite  outside  himself. 
He  seems  to  have  had  very  little  idea  of  his  epistolary 
virtues,  and  in  one  letter  to  Pennant  he  writes  with 
naive  charm  : 

On  a  retrospect,  I  observe  that  my  long  letter  carries  with  it 
a  quaint  and  magisterial  air  that  is  very  sententious,  but  ...  I 
hope  you  will  pardon  the  didactic  manner  for  the  sake  of  the 
information  it  may  happen  to  contain. 

There  was  about  as  much  self-importance  in  White 
as  there  was  light-headedness  in  Timothy,  his  tortoise, 
and  he  is  a  standing  example  of  the  truth  of  the 


84        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

artistic  axiom  that  he  who  shall  lose  his  personality  shall 
save  it.  Mr.  W.  H.  Hudson,  on  paying  a  visit  to 
Selborne,  was  reminded  in  a  very  beautiful  piece  of 
imaginative  writing  of  Nicholas  Culpepper's  line — "  His 
image  stamped  is  on  every  grass  " — and  when  I  went 
to  Selborne  myself,  before  reading  Mr.  Hudson's  account, 
I  did  feel  his  presence  with  extraordinary,  almost 
physical,  vividness.  There  is  at  any  rate  no  doubt 
that  "  his  image  stamped "  is  on  every  line  of  his 
work,  limited  as  it  is  in  scope  and  prosaic  in  temper, 
and  the  accomplishment  of  a  man  who  hardly  ever  left 
the  boundaries  of  his  own  sequestered  parish.  White, 
with  his  grave,  courteous  manner,  and  in  his  lucid, 
composed  idiom,  told  us  all  about  a  certain  place,  but 
that  is  by  no  means  a  corollary  of  the  artistic  genius 
of  place.  This  is  an  immaterial  thing,  a  spiritual  en- 
dowment, and  one  feels  it  by  an  awareness  of  his 
presence  in  the  shadows  of  the  old  churchyard  yew  as 
behind  his  workaday  language.  It  is  surely  one  of  the 
wonders  of  art,  embracing  man  and  nature,  the  living 
and  the  dead,  that  the  correspondence  of  this  country 
stay-at-home  should  have  made  that  parish  a  mental 
rambling  haunt  for  the  whole  of  the  English  reading 
world,  and  more  abiding  and  famous  in  story  than  a 
hundred  battle-fields.  But  perhaps  the  most  permanent 
impression  we  receive  from  reading  White  is  not  the 
place  he  lived  in  nor  the  history  nor  the  art,  but  the 
man.  Art  and  natural  history  both  take  their  truth 
of  being  from  character,  and  here  is  a  whole,  real, 
simple  man,  born  two  hundred  years  ago,  and  as  actual 
and  genuine  a  human  person  to  us  who  live  after  him, 
as  he  was  to  his  parishioners.  This  is  the  immortality 
of  art,  which  embraces  man  and  nature,  the  living  and 
the  dead. 


After  Gilbert  White — Selborne,  and  I  shall  here  give 
an  account  of  one  of  my  visits  there.  If  a  man,  be  he 
ornithologist  or  lover,  wishes  to  get  the  hang  both  of 
Gilbert  White  and  Selborne,  let  him  read  Mr.  W.  H. 
Hudson's  account  of  his  first  visit  to  this  remote 


GILBERT  WHITE  AND  SELBORNE      85 

Hampshire  village.  Mr.  Hudson  sat  under  that  famous, 
patriarchal  yew  in  the  churchyard,  and  there,  not  the 
ghost,  but  a  kind  of  earthly  emanation,  a  "  residuum 
of  life,"  a  faint  surviving  image  of  the  man,  appeared 
to  him.  The  two  conversed  and  compared  notes,  the 
eighteenth  century  questioning,  the  twentieth  respond- 
ing. And  this  duet  is  a  piece  of  really  inspired  prose, 
by  which  we  are  made  to  comprehend  how  far  we 
have  advanced  from  the  eighteenth  century  to  the 
modern  attitude  to  nature.  Nor,  in  a  few  lines,  could 
the  personality  of  the  gentle,  domestic,  old  scholar  of 
nature  be  more  magically  summoned  out  of  the 
past. 

This,  then,  was  the  message  of  Selborne,  and  made 
the  walk  to  it  something  of  a  quest,  almost  an  initia- 
tion, as  though,  hidden  beneath  some  grass -blade  or 
in  the  ivy  of  the  church  tower,  there  was  to  be  found 
a  minute  "  crock  of  gold." 

When,  therefore,  I  set  out  for  Selborne  over  the  high 
table-land  from  Petersfield  through  Froxfield  and  East 
Tisted,  I  felt  I  was  doing  the  best  I  could  for  the 
emotional  promise  of  the  day  by  keeping  an  attentive 
eye  for  the  birds  in  my  neighbourhood  and  an  atten- 
tive inward  ear  for  that  refined  and  spiritualized  con- 
versation, like  the  vivid  though  leisurely  intonations 
of  two  blackbirds. 

I  had  not  gone  far  when  I  heard  a  willow-wren  mur- 
muring from  the  bough  of  a  hornbeam  by  the  side  of 
the  road.  It  was  one  of  the  first  I  had  heard  that 
spring,  for  though  the  willow-wren  is  one  of  the  earliest 
migrants  hither,  it  takes  longer  to  get  into  its  musical 
stride  than  do  chiff-chaff,  blackcap,  wood- wren  or  garden- 
warbler.  Warde  Fowler  has  given  a  very  exact  des- 
cription of  the  bird's  "  dying  fall " ;  Burroughs,  the 
much  overpraised  American  ornithologist,  who  paid  our 
warblers  a  visit,  speaks  of  its  "  long,  tender,  delicious 
warble — the  song  of  the  chaffinch  refined  and  idealized  " 
(I  cannot  myself  see  the  faintest  resemblance  in  it  to 
the  chaffinch's  song),  and  Mr.  Hudson  of  the  likeness 
of  the  notes  in  the  finished  cadence  to  the  human  voice, 
and  so  appeal  to  human  sympathy.  It  is  not  at  all 


86        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

an  elaborate  or  brilliant  song,  and  the  languishing  notes, 
though  they  do  not  always  float  down  to  the  last  sighing 
diminuendo,  are  always  repeated  in  the  same  order. 
Yet  it  is  a  song  to  which  I  could  listen  longer  than  to 
that  of  any  other  small  bird  (except  the  nightingale) 
I  know,  so  fragile  is  it,  but  so  lingering  that  after  some 
minutes  it  steals  into  and  interpenetrates  the  whole 
being,  until  one  breathes  and  moves  by  music,  as  though 
personal  identity  were  relaxing  and  shifting,  swinging 
into  the  measured  beats  of  nature's  pulse,  caught  up 
into  that  great  pendulum  of  song  that  surges  up  through 
drone  of  gnat's  wing  to  the  chiming  of  the  star,  and 
now  down,  a  shaft  of  light,  a  loosed  wind,  a  leaf,  down 
into  the  fainting  Amen  of  this  yellowish-green  bird-form 
among  the  green- winged  branches. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  double  appeal  in  the  willow- 
warbler's  song,  the  one  belonging  to  the  natural  festival 
of  renewal,  the  other  to  human  sentiment — a  good 
morning  and  a  good  evening.  It  is  the  music  of  the 
wind-flower,  clear,  yet  low,  and  is  the  very  expression 
of  shy,  maidenly,  early  spring,  when  the  April  morning 
is  like  one  of  Blake's  children  and  the  shy-peering 
grass,  the  primroses  and  bluebells  seem  rather  dimples 
than  shapes,  rather  melodies  than  colours,  each  with 
its  separate  note,  but  blended  all  into  one  concert  of 
praise.  But  while  aerial,  the  song  is  also  human,  not 
in  the  tone,  I  think  (as  Mr.  Hudson  says),  but  its  ex- 
pression and  the  gentle  stimulus  it  gives  to  associations 
of  the  past.  It  is  too  subtle  for  melancholy,  and  its 
plaintiveness  is  free  of  sorrow — it  voices,  shall  we  say, 
what  old  Lyly  would  call  "  a  pleasing  pain."  Though 
it  is  impossible  for  the  human  ear  to  distinguish  by  any 
difference  of  note  or  quality  between  a  bird's  song 
uttered  in  anger  or  anxiety  and  one  of  rapture,  yet 
intoxication  of  spirits,  the  overmastering  gladness  which 
is  in  all  nature,  are  what  commonly  impel  a  bird  to 
sing,  and  of  such  is  the  willow-wren's  elegy.  But  for 
us  an  elegy  it  remains,  a  reminder  and  looking  back- 
wards through  the  screen  of  leafy  memory  drawn  aside 
by  it.  Thus  the  song  I  heard  was  a  true  dispensation 
for  my  journey  to  Selborne,  and  I  could  go  ahead,  boldly 


GILBERT  WHITE   AND   SELBORNE      87 

paraphrasing — "  a  day  of  memories  and  sighs  I  conse- 
crate to  thee." 

I  was  glad  to  find  the  yellow-hammer  common  along 
the  hedgerows,  for  they  are  favourites  of  mine,  and  I 
wasted  a  good  deal  of  time  watching  them  singing  their 
little  hymns,  like  a  sighing  gust  of  wind  among  tall 
grasses,  beaks  comically  lifted  to  heaven  and  golden 
heads  shining  in  the  sun. 

It  is  a  thing  to  note  that  the  chaffinch,  greenfinch  and 
this  canary  of  ours  are  the  only  native  species  who  run 
up  a  flourish  at  the  end  of  their  set  song.  The  yellow- 
hammer's  phrase  is,  of  course,  a  much  more  humdrum 
affair  than  the  chaffinch's  :  he  does  not  put  himself 
out  about  rivals,  and  song  to  this  comfortable  body 
sitting  on  the  top  of  the  hedge  is  what  a  pull  of  his 
pipe  is  to  the  placid  countryman  perched  on  the  top 
bar  of  a  gate.  I  doubt  whether  he  prefers  wild  and 
incult  lands  so  much  as  is  supposed.  No,  he  likes  to 
take  his  ease  on  more  cultivated  uplands,  upon  the  lower 
branch  of  a  tree  or  the  summit  of  a  thick  hedge  inter- 
secting wide  fields,  where  he  can  get  a  good  view  and 
sibilate  away  to  himself  all  the  warm,  long  day.  I 
imagine  he  does  not  think  much.  It  is  an  amiable 
musing,  and  his  reverie  goes  ambling  over  the  different 
objects  that  present  themselves  like  a  humble-bee  from 
flower  to  flower.  Yellow-hammers  fight,  of  course,  in  the 
breeding  season  with  as  much  fury  and  as  little  damage 
as  other  birds,  but  I  maintain  that  they  are  the  most 
absent-minded  of  all  singing  birds. 

Here,  too,  turtle  doves  had  settled  for  the  summer, 
and  their  low,  tremulous  croodling  or  purring  notes 
accompanied  me  for  a  couple  of  miles.  They  have  a 
beautiful  love-flight,  sailing  down  to  earth,  with  arched 
wings  and  expanded  white-barred  tails,  in  a  slanting 
glide,  that  makes  the  curves  of  Milo's  Venus  look  mean, 
and  finishing  up  with  a  crack  of  the  wings,  like  the 
woodpigeon's.  There  were  several  pairs  of  lapwings 
building  in  the  fields,  and  I  once  turned  aside  to  try 
and  find  a  nest,1  not  because  I  cared  much  whether  I 

1  The   perfect   adaptation   of  the   colouring   of  the  egg   to   its 
environment  makes  it  a  very  difficult  nest  to  find.    And  I  think 


88        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

found  it  or  not,  but  simply  for  the  pleasure  of  having 
their  company  in  a  world  where  the  larger  birds  shun 
our  presence,  as  Coleridge's  walker  fled  the  "  fearful 
fiend,  That  close  behind  him  treads."  So  I  walked 
about,  enjoying  the  unique  sensation  of  these  fine  birds 
following  me  all  over  the  field,  flying  close  round  my 
head,  and  displaying  the  utmost  anxiety  and  fearless- 
ness. But  at  last  I  grew  ashamed  of  getting  my 
pleasure  at  the  expense  of  an  emotion  painful  to  them, 
and  slunk  off,  being  seen  safely  and  some  distance  off 
the  premises  by  the  outraged  tenants.  They  are  wily 
enough  when  the  hunt  is  a  determined  one,  and  I 
knew  when  I  first  peeped  through  at  the  sentinel  male 
he  would  signal  to  his  mate  to  run  from  her  eggs  or 
chicks  before  rising  from  another  quarter  of  the  field 
to  join  him  in  a  protest  demonstration,  half-politic, 
half-earnest.  The  cries  of  lapwings  are  much  more 
varied  and  musical  when  the  sexual  impulse  is  at  flood 
tide  than  at  any  other  time,  and  though  they  will 
"  tumble  "  out  of  an  excess  of  high  spirits  in  autumn 
as  well  as  spring,  they  will  pirouette  and  dance  and 
sport  irregularly  in  the  air  during  the  nuptial  season  as 
at  no  other  time,  as  though  the  exhilaration  of  living 
demanded  a  kind  of  free  verse  movement  in  flight. 

So  I  jogged  along  that  lavish,  swelling,  varied,  though 
never  grand  country,  finding  both  whitethroats,  the 
lesser  just  as  demonstrative  and  excitable  as  his 
cousin,  and  singing  his  shrill,  garrulous  warble  with 
crest  raised,  body  shaken,  and  throat  puffed  out  and 
vibrating  in  the  fine  frenzy  of  melody.  The  common 
whitethroat's  song  is  also  an  ejaculation,  sharply  grated 
out,  but  it  is  more  varied  and  less  brief,  and  its  scold- 
ing notes  are  interchanged  with  others  of  a  more 
musical  quality.  Both  these  little  warblers  are  twig- 
thumping  orators.  The  lesser  is  more  arboreal  than 
the  common,  and  prefers  the  tree-tops.  I  heard  an 
occasional  blackcap  and  garden-warbler,  and  saw  two 
or  three  jays  and  magpies,  before  I  arrived  at  the  long, 
winding  street  of  Selborne  village. 

that  the  reason  partly  is  that  the  bird  deliberately  selects  a  spot 
most  resembling  the  colouration  of  the  egg. 


GILBERT  WHITE  AND  SELBORNE      89 

The  first  thing  I  did  was  to  climb  the  "  zig-zag " 
(constructed  in  White's  time)  of  Selborne  Hangar,  to 
wander  on  the  common.  Birds  (except  wood- wrens)  do 
not  frequent  the  beech  which  White  called  "  the  most 
lovely  of  all  forest  trees,  whether  we  consider  its 
smooth  rind  or  bark,  its  glossy  foliage,  or  graceful 
pendulous  boughs,"  for  the  simple  reason  that  its  woods 
permit  no  undergrowth,  and  nowadays  there  are  no 
honey-buzzards  (as  there  were  in  1780)  to  build  upon 
the  canopy  of  foliage.  But  there  were  none  on  the 
common,  a  wild,  desolate,  and  untamed  land,  com- 
manding many  a  fine  prospect  of  the  irregular,  rolling, 
fecund  Hampshire  country,  though  I  found  a  throstle's 
nest,  and  that  went  some  way  towards  compensating 
me.  How  wonderfully  beautiful  the  eggs  are  in  their 
natural  home — blue  oval  skies,  powdered  at  the  poles 
with  black  stars  and  with  a  greenish  tinge  over  the 
blue,  as  if  the  earth  had  stained  the  heavens !  In 
the  collector's  cabinet  they  look  and  are  no  more  than 
pebbles  or  coloured  marbles.  When  I  find  a  throstle's 
nest  I  am  often  reminded  of  John  Clare's  sonnet, 
"  The  Thrush's  Nest  "  :  — 

I  watched  her  secret  toil  from  day  to  day — 
How  true  she  warped  the  moss,  to  find  a  nest, 

And  modelled  it  within  with  wood  and  clay ; 
And  by  and  by  like  heath-bells  gilt  with  dew, 

There  lay  her  shining  eggs,  as  bright  as  flowers, 
Ink-spotted  over  shells  of  greeny  blue. 

And  there  I  witnessed  in  the  sunny  hours, 
A  brood  of  Nature's  minstrels  chirp  and  fly, 

Glad  as  the  sunshine  and  the  laughing  sky. 

Clare  1  has  none  of  Barnes's  fastidiously  and  exquisitely 
learned  secrets  of  melody.  But  they  are  alike  not  only 
in  being  both  good,  precise  naturalists,  but  in  clothing 
their  verse  in  a  certain  lovingkindness.  It  is  not  fan- 
tastic to  tie  their  qualities  up  together.  The  absorbed 
watchfulness  of  these  poets  upon  the  beauty  of  the  visible 

1  Clare's  spirit  (and  above  all  things  he  was  a  lover,  a  poet 
of  the  spirit),  with  its  keen  particularity,  survives  not  only  by  its 
own  virtue  but  in  the  poetry  of  a  modern,  E.  C.  Blunden. 


90        BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

world — about  the  invisible  they  bothered  themselves 
little — seemed  to  transfer  the  beauty  not  only  to  their 
numbers,  but  their  personalities. 

So  I  left  the  waste  and  set  off  down  the  pretty 
village  street  for  the  Plestor,  the  little  square  with  the 
sycamore  which  has  supplanted  "  the  vast  oak,  the 
delight  of  young  and  old,"  overturned  by  a  tempest  in 
1703.  Thence  into  the  churchyard,  keeping  the  eyes 
resolutely  turned  away  from  "  The  Wakes,"  which  now 
looks  like  my  suburban  residence  in  London.  Happily, 
there  still  remain  the  churchyard  and  the  massy- 
girthed  yew  and  the  cypresses  and  the  squat,  square 
tower  of  the  church,  which  no  rich  man  has  yet  thrown 
down  to  rear  a  mighty  fane  to  his  Sovereign  God.  Still, 
too,  hovers  the  blessed  spirit  of  the  place  which  hides 
the  small  leaning  gravestone  of  Gilbert  White  with 
long,  waving  grasses.  That  stone,  with  "  G.W."  upon 
it  and  the  dates  of  his  birth  and  death,  is  still  inviolate, 
and  no  progressive  person  has  stood  over  it  and  ex- 
claimed :  "  What  needs  my  Gilbert  for  his  honoured 
bones  ?  " — while  the  affrighted  familiars  of  the  spirit 
shrieked  and  departed.  But  all  the  screams  I  heard 
were  the  modulated  ones  of  the  greenfinches,  varied 
with  their  fluttering  song.  The  greenfinch,  indeed,  the 
olive  bird  with  a  slash  of  gold  flaming  above  the  flank 
when  the  wings  are  closed,  was  the  commonest  bird 
in  the  churchyard,  and  his  lively  ripple  (greenfinches 
are  great  talkers)  went  breaking  over  the  boughs  sway- 
ing in  the  breeze.  In  the  big  sycamore,  where,  Mr. 
Hudson  tells  us,  he  saw  the  cirl  bunting  (I  saw  him 
on  the  way  home),  a  daw  was  building,  and  the  hole 
was  so  small  that  the  female  took  half  a  minute  to 
squeeze  herself  through.  Lower  down  on  the  same 
tree  a  fly-catcher  had  its  perch,  and  repeatedly  swung 
off  it  to  round  up  a  fly  in  a  sweeping  curve  and  return. 
In  White's  time  twelve  pairs  of  swifts  circled  the  tower 
in  their  evening  revels.  When  Mr.  Hudson  went  to 
Selborne  it  was  eight,  and  I  saw  but  two,  though  this 
year  (1919)  swifts  outnumbered  both  swallows  and 
house-martins  put  together.  It  made  me  uncomfort- 
able to  think  what  White  would  feel  about  our  dwindling 


GILBERT   WHITE  AND  SELBORNE      91 

"  hirundines,"  dwindling  so  surely  year  by  year,  now 
that  the  French,  Spaniards,  and  Italians  have  found 
a  new  and  improved  method  of  taking  them  on  migration, 
so  that  the  security  and  quietude  of  that  old  church- 
yard seemed  menaced  and  ruffled,  and  I  left  it. 

I  went  home  by  the  Liss  main  road.  Every  half- 
minute  or  so  motor-cars  passed  by  in  a  convulsion  of 
stinks,  dust,  whirr  and  hoots.  In  the  middle  of  the 
road,  perfectly  quiet  and  composed,  stood  a  little  bird, 
uttering  every  few  seconds  a  subdued,  pensive,  sorrow- 
ful twitter.  Whenever  a  motor  squealed  by  it  fluttered 
under  the  very  wheels  into  a  near  holly-bush,  and 
when  the  clamour  had  subsided  flew  down  again  into 
the  same  place,  uttering  that  plaintive  call.  I  was 
astounded  when  I  recognized  the  shy  goldfinch.  So 
I  walked  up  to  where  it  stood  (it  was  a  male),  and  there 
I  found  the  body  of  another  goldfinch — not  a  body, 
but  a  shell,  all  that  was  left  being  the  outer  skin  clothed 
in  faded  feathers.  It  had  been  dead  several  days.  I 
took  the  bird  and  laid  it  in  some  long  grass  by  the  road- 
side, and  as  soon  as  I  had  turned  my  back,  the  live 
bird  flew  down  from  the  holly  and  perched  beside  the 
grass,  uttering  his  mournful,  scarce  audible  requiem. 
Then  at  last  did  I  understand  that  strange  talk  between 
the  two  naturalists  in  Selborne  churchyard,  now  that 
nature  had  shown  me  this  wonder,  now  that  I  had 
found  the  crock  of  gold. 


CHAPTER   V 
BIRD-HAUNTED    LONDON 


THE  title  of  this  chapter  is  a  misnomer.  My 
observations  of  London  birds  are  confined  almost 
exclusively  to  the  district  in  which  I  live — an  inner, 
south-western  suburb  near  the  river,  and  in  brave, 
legendary  days  a  fourpenny  bus  ride  from  Charing 
Cross.  It  is  true  that  I  have  penetrated  our  brick 
jungles  in  search  of  wild  bird-life  in  various  parks 
and  open  spaces.  But  the  changes  commented  upon 
by  Mr.  Hudson  (who  gives  a  list  of  forty-nine  breed- 
ing species  in  Kew  Gardens  in  Birds  in  London) 
are  now  accomplished.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  the  parks  belong  to  the  public,  and  it  is 
not  they  who  are  to  blame  for  the  banishment  of 
the  wild  birds,  but  the  singular  passion  of  park 
authorities  for  parlour-maid  nature.  They  are  born 
into  the  world  with  a  mission  to  turn  Tib,  Marian 
and  Silvia  into  Chloris,  Celia  and  Sacharissa,  and 
they  spend  their  lives  in  making  them  presentable. 
Tib's  hair  is  apt  to  steal  down  upon  her  eyebrows, 
Marian  laughs  like  a  mad  thing,  and  Silvia's  green 
girdle  is  all  frayed  at  the  edges.  Back  with  it,  down 
with  it,  away  with  it !  So  for  years  these  worthies 
have  been  lopping  boughs,  trimming  grass,  uprooting 
undergrowth,  until  at  last  they  have  succeeded  in 
tidying  up  the  tousled  nymph  for  the  drawing-room, 
and  have  manicured  nature  down  to  the  quick  of 
their  own  tidy  little  souls.  Unless  used  for  agricul- 
tural purposes,  the  open  spaces  in  and  about  London 
are  now  like  sets  of  eighteenth-century  heroic  couplets. 
But  the  birds  do  not  share  their  tastes. 

Kew  Gardens  are  intended  to  be  little  more  than  an 

92 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  93 

open-air  botanical  museum.  But  even  there  Nature 
might  be  allowed  more  freedom  to  stretch  her  limbs 
and  unbind  her  hair.  But  I  have  a  soft  place  for 
Kew,  chiefly  because  of  a  human  memory,  and  partly 
because  I  once  saw  a  party  of  goldcrests  there  in  a 
larch  grove  (they  nest  in  the  Gardens),  and  a  place 
where  goldcrests  live  lays  a  spell  on  me.  One  early 
October  morning  among  the  pines  of  a  Suffolk  heath, 
their  branches  draped  and  festooned  with  gossamer, 
clustered  with  dewdrops,  like  mantillas  on  dark  hair, 
I  met  a  large  company  of  goldcrests  breaking  over 
the  trees  under  which  I  stood  in  a  wave  of  greenish 
foam.  Bright  drops  of  shrill  sound — zee,  zee,  zee — 
fell  from  them  in  showers  and,  crystallized  in  the 
sharp  air,  entangled  themselves,  it  seemed,  among 
the  gossamer.  The  delicacy  of  that  happy  sight  give 
places  haunted  by  goldcrests  a  particular  grace  of 
association  for  me. 

Richmond  Park  is  slowly  recovering  from  Sir  Alfred 
Mond.  It  is  visited  by  many  of  the  migrants,  but 
the  sparseness  of  the  undergrowth  prevents  most 
species,  except  those  building  in  holes  in  trees,  from 
making  a  home  of  it.  Jackdaws,  rooks,  woodpeckers, 
mistle-thrushes,  owls,  jays,  nuthatches,  creepers,  tits 
and  starlings  frequent  it  in  some  numbers,  and  the 
heronry  in  Sidmouth  Wood  is  a  wonderful  sight  in 
early  spring.  Visit  it  in  March  and  the  birds  will 
be  seen  floating  among  the  trees,  alighting  awkwardly 
among  the  branches  and  standing,  gaunt  and  statuesque, 
on  the  platforms  of  the  bulky  nests.  There  are  occa- 
sional tiffs  when  a  bird  trespasses  upon  the  legitimate 
tree  of  a  nesting  pair,  and  many  love-scenes,  the  couples 
caressing  each  others'  necks  and  bowing  long  bills  with 
the  most  flattering  air.  The  scene,  indeed,  is  like 
that  of  an  older  world,  and  it  would  be  no  great 
feat  of  illusion  to  transport  oneself  back  to  a  nesting 
colony  of  Pterodactyls.  The  birds  are  very  noisy  in 
the  breeding  season,  and  their  cries  are  more  mam- 
malian than  bird-like,  the  only  bird-sounds  they 
resemble  being  the  honking  of  geese,  the  quacking 
of  ducks,  and  the  guttural  calls  of  coots  and  water- 


94        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

hens.  One  approaches  the  heronry  as  to  a  menagerie, 
resounding  with  grunting,  squealing  and  barking  notes 
like  those  of  seals. 

The  great  crested  grebe  resides  on  Penn  Ponds 
among  the  coots  and  mallards,  though  I  have  never 
seen  more  than  three  pairs.  There  I  have  seen  their 
wonderful  nuptial  dances  on  the  water,  the  shining 
breasts  conspicuous  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  Nut- 
hatches and  greater  spotted  woodpeckers  are  not  so 
uncommon  in  the  groves  of  old  oaks  as  one  would  suppose. 
In  March  I  have  heard  the  greater  spotted  woodpecker 
drumming  his  love-song  on  the  bark  of  an  oak.  It 
is  a  rapid  tattoo,  a  loud  imperative  summons,  and 
the  bird  (showing  great  excitement)  takes  pleasure  in 
varying  the  pauses  of  this  instrumental  music,  the 
blows  being  repeated  in  succession  from  half  a  dozen 
to  a  score  of  times.  The  most  extraordinary  thing 
I  ever  saw  in  Richmond  Park  (on  October  25,  1920) 
was  a  hooded  crow.  I  would  have  rejected  my  identifi- 
cation in  favour  of  an  aberrant  carrion  crow  but  for 
the  fact  that  I  saw  the  bird  at  close  quarters  and 
for  two  minutes'  length  of  time.  Nobody,  of  course, 
will  believe  me. 

Wimbledon  (I  am  told  the  kingfisher  haunts  the 
Wandle,  but  I  have  never  seen  it  there)  and  parks 
in  other  districts  of  London  I  know  too  little  to 
give  an  adequate  account  of  their  birds,  but  I  will 
make  a  brief  reference  to  a  visit  I  paid  to  St.  James's 
Park  in  the  June  of  1919.  The  Government  dragon 
had  spewed  out  its  rubble  over  the  greater  part  of 
the  charming  lake — once  a  mistress  "  sweet  and  kind  " 
to  water-birds — and  had  built  itself  a  squat  den  on 
top  of  it.  Obviously  this  outrage  was  too  much  for 
the  dabchick,  which  nests  there  no  longer.  The  lake 
now  is  little  bigger  than  the  average  heath-pond. 
The  less  specialized  water-hen,  however,  had  stuck  to 
its  quarters  and  conducted  its  young  about  among 
the  pelicans  and  ornamental  water-fowl — the  only 
authentic  wild  bird  of  them  all.  The  pelicans  were 
ludicrously  disproportioned  to  their  surroundings,  look- 
ing like  eccentric  angels  on  exhibition.  Nature  has 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  95 

made  them  comical  and  dignified,  grotesque  and 
superbly  beautiful  simultaneously,  but  here  the  scales 
were  tipped  the  wrong  way.  None  the  less,  they  were 
comparatively  happy  and  not  gaoled  in  the  Zoo,  what- 
ever their  limitations. 

But  my  intention  is  to  confine  myself  to  my  own 
locality,  and  it  may  not  be  altogether  a  work  of 
supererogation  to  describe  what  I  have  seen  with  my 
own  eyes  in  a  district  only  mentioned  in  passing  by 
previous  writers,  so  accessible  from  the  centre  of 
London,  and  at  dates  so  recent  as  1918,  1919,  and 
1920. 

II 

The  peculiarity  of  London  wild  bird-life  is  to  be 
almost  entirely  nomad  and  seasonal.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  sparrow,  titmouse,  owl,  crow  and  heron,  I 
do  not  know  of  a  single  species  which  remains  in  the 
same  place  throughout  the  year.  All  is  shifting  and 
unstable,  and  the  same  bird  that  stays  to-day,  to- 
morrow will  be  going.  Unless,  therefore,  one  is  dealing 
exhaustively  with  the  bird-life  of  all  London  as  Mr. 
Hudson  did  years  ago,  it  will  be  convenient  to  take  it 
by  rotation  of  the  seasons  and  to  begin  with  the  autumn. 
When  the  last  of  the  summer  migrants  have  departed, 
the  mighty  wave  of  winged  life  still  surges  from  north 
to  south,  scattering  in  its  passage  a  few  flecks  of 
foam  upon  the  mirk  miles  of  London  Town.  The 
country  round  my  home  is  open,  flat  as  a  planed 
board  and  treeless,  except  for  the  orchards,  one  on 
either  side  of  the  river,  a  few  scattered  sycamores, 
poplars,  and  elms,  and  lines  of  elms  and  willows  along 
the  banks,  a  highway  of  migration.  Most  of  the  land, 
with  the  fertility  of  the  rich  alluvial  deposits  of  the 
river  to  encourage  it,  is  highly  cultivated  with  vegetable 
produce,  and  there  is  something  harmonious  and  restful 
to  the  eye  in  the  long  symmetrical  rows  of  green 
shoots  channelling  the  dark  earth.  I  can  never  fall 
out  with  a  long  line,  be  it  but  that  of  the  provincial 
cabbage.  For  that  reason,  I  grew  to  dislike  the  little 
allotment  patches  the  more  I  saw  of  them.  Their 


96        BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

pinched  confusion  of  outline  at  once  destroys  the  large 
rhythm  and  repose  of  the  fields,  and  I  do  not  think 
it  fanciful  to  see  in  their  ugliness  a  wrong  and  brusque 
method  of  relationship  with  the  earth,  a  kind  of  un- 
graciousness with  it,  in  which  the  poverty  of  appearance 
naturally  and  in  the  long  run  corresponds  with  that  of 
material  results.  It  is  wonderful  what  a  lot  of  practical 
work  real  beauty  manages  to  do. 

Except  for  the  gulls,  who  seem  to  come  up  the 
river  earlier  every  year,1  there  is  very  little  bird-life 
along  the  river  until  the  winter.  The  land  is  the 
enclusive  stage  for  exits  and  entrances,  and  the  wood- 
pigeon,  who  leaves  us  in  September  (sometimes  in 
large  flocks  for  the  country,  death  and  richer  food, 
the  survivors  trickling  back  to  safety  in  December  and 
January  like  a  routed  army),  gives  the  signal  for 
the  procession  to  begin.  I  once  saw  a  detachment 
in  early  October  thus  migrating  in  a  high  wind,  and 
as  they  wheeled,  taking  a  corner  of  the  gale,  they 
threw  up  their  wings  into  a  beautiful  arch  in  the 
manner  of  redshank  and  ringed  plover.  Then  I  saw 
no  more  of  the  ring-dove  until  the  end  of  the  first 
week  in  December. 

The  land  now  begins  to  serve  as  a  collecting  station 
for  autumn  flocks,  like  a  miscellany  of  poems.  Some 
days  after  the  wood-pigeons  had  gone  I  blundered 
(on  a  day  of  yellow  fog)  into  a  migration  of  black- 
birds. They  had  stopped  to  rest  in  the  may  and 
elderberry  hedged  orchard  on  my  (the  Surrey)  side 
of  the  river,  and  I  saw  as  many  as  thirty  of  them 
in  the  gloom,  while  the  clogged  air  vibrated  with 
metallic  detonations  from  at  least  thirty  more  black 
knights-errant  hidden  among  the  trees.  Next  day 
two-thirds  of  them  had  vanished,  and  gradually  the 
party  thinned  away  into  the  unknown,  until  in 
another  week  only  the  original  residents — half  a  dozen 
or  so  in  number — who  remain  with  us  until  the 
nesting  season  (most  of  them  being  eaten  by  the 
"rakehelly  rabblement "  of  cats)  were  left.  Yet  with 

1  The  earliest  I  have  seen  them  (a  pair)  was  on  August  4th 
—perhaps  a  pair  that  failed  to  rear  a  family. 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  97 

the  running  out  of  one  tide  of  life,  another  sets  in, 
and  larks,  lapwings,  pipits,  chaffinches,  greenfinches, 
dunnocks,  mistle-thrushes  and  pied  wagtails  begin 
slowly  to  dribble  in  upon  us  like  people  going  to 
church.  One  day  I  actually  saw  a  bullfinch  dis- 
appearing over  the  hedge  into  the  orchard  with  a 
gleam  of  his  white  rump.  I  had  but  time  to  shelter 
him  in  a  grassy  recess  of  memory,  for  that  was  the 
first  and  last  I  have  ever  seen  of  his  loved  kind  in 
or  near  London.  Once,  too,  I  saw  a  corn-bunting 
feeding  in  a  cabbage  field  among  sparrows,  chaffinches, 
gulls  and  lapwings. 

Lapwings  lend  a  peculiar  distinction  to  my  neighbour- 
hood, and  by  the  middle  of  December,  when  they 
muster  on  the  banks  of  the  river  and  still  earlier  in 
cold  weather,  they  are  more  than  a  hundred  strong. 
They  are  as  often  in  pairs  as  flocks,  and  it  is  possible 
that  Mr.  Hudson's  account  of  the  starlings  preserving 
their  marital  identity  in  the  winter  congregation  also 
applies  to  the  lapwing.  Courtship  begins  as  early  as  the 
middle  of  a  mild  February,  the  male  advancing  towards 
his  fair  with  dancing  steps  and  uplifted,  quivering  wings. 

One  autumn  day  I  received  a  striking  demonstration 
of  the  probability  of  the  starling  theory.  I  disturbed 
a  band  of  starlings  and  sparrows  congregated  on  a 
tree  under  which  I  was  passing,  and  a  starling,  having 
collided  with  a  sparrow,  was  furiously  pursued  by  it 
and  separated  from  the  flock.  No  sooner  were  the 
pair  of  them  fifty  yards  or  so  away  (they  travelled 
at  right  angles  to  it)  than  another  starling  detached 
itself  from  its  fellows,  flew  after  and  joined  its  partner. 

The  immobility  of  the  lapwing  serves  it  wonder- 
fully as  a  protective  device  on  a  ploughed  field.  I 
was  once  sweeping  such  a  field  with  the  glass  on  the 
Middlesex  side  of  the  river,  when  the  wings  of  a 
lapwing  were  raised,  and  I  suddenly  perceived  that 
the  field  was  full  of  them.  So  perfectly  did  the 
metallic  greens  of  the  back  match  the  subdued  high 
lights  of  the  clods  that  the  birds  had  baffled  even 
the  searching  cunning  of  a  field-glass.  Without  the 
glass  I  could  not  see  a  single  one,  though  it  was 

7 


98         BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

a  clear  day,  the  birds  within  fifty  yards  of  me,  and 
I  knew  them  to  be  there !  In  rest,  they  are  indeed 
as  still  as  bird  statues,  standing  with  hunched  shoulders 
and  necks  drawn  in,  like  bronze  green  flowers  in  a 
windless  land.  This  is  plain  evidence  that  "  protec- 
tive "  colouring  even  in  our  land  need  not  be  and  is 
not  always  dull.  A  golden  oriole  in  the  chequered 
sunlight  of  the  trees  would  be  protectively  coloured. 

What  a  contrast  is  the  lapwings'  quietude  with 
their  flight,  the  flight  of  a  miniature  heron  with  none 
of  the  steadiness  !  They  are  like  large  leaves  casually 
whirled  about  in  the  air,  and  they  seem  to  delight 
in  showing  off  the  blacks  and  whites  of  their  wings 
as  irregularly  and  yet  rhythmically  as  a  dancer  dis- 
playing her  limbs.  In  spite  of  their  rounded  wings, 
they  take  the  wind  with  more  ease  than  gulls,  the 
reason  possibly  being  because,  like  many  other  of 
the  Charadriidce,  they  make  use  of  body  action  in 
the  air.  It  may  be  this  superiority  that  makes  gulls 
sometimes  stoop  at  a  lapwing  flying  among  them. 
They  enjoy  taking  the  air  of  a  moonlight  night,  and 
one  November  I  was  out  in  the  fields  at  half-past 
eleven  listening  to  their  ghostly  cries  and  watching 
their  wavering  flight  round  my  head  in  a  light  itself 
ghostly  and  wavering  between  dusk  and  dawn. 

In  late  summer  and  during  the  autumn  herons 
used  punctually  to  fly  over  my  house  from  the 
Richmond  heronry  in  the  morning  and  back  again 
in  the  evening,  and  it  is  not  until  the  winter  that 
one  or  two  of  them  are  to  be  seen  stalking  along  the 
river-bank.  I  have  seen  twelve,  thirteen,  sixteen  and 
nineteen  herons,  doubtless  parent  birds  and  young, 
marching  the  air  from  my  window.  One  heron,  with 
its  Marlowesque  flight,  its  unhurrying  stateliness  and 
power,  is  sufficient  to  banish  common  thoughts.  But 
nineteen,  thrown  out  into  a  wide,  irregular  mass 
and  cruising  a  stormy  sky  into  the  rich  turmoil  of 
sunset — here  is  the  grand  style. 

Birds  are  good  barometers,  and  it  is  curious  to  see 
how  the  autumnal  swelling  of  their  numbers  is  affected 
by  weather  conditions.  The  process  is  only  cumulative 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  99 

if  the  weather  keeps  open  and  humid,  but  let  a  cold 
snap  occur  and  the  numbers  of  the  starlings  are 
dwindled,  some  of  them  no  doubt  going  overseas 
without  more  ado,  while  other  species  spring  into 
notice  like  mushrooms.  I  have  been  out  one  day 
and  seen  a  meagre  sprinkling  of  wagtails,  larks,  green- 
finches, chaffinches  and  pipits,  and  gone  out  three  or 
four  days  later  with  winter  snatching  autumn  roughly 
to  his  embrace,  to  find  ten  and  twenties  for  pairs. 
Autumn  repulses  her  Esau,  and  the  birds  are  back 
in  their  original  numbers.  By  December  the  larks 
are  assembled  in  thirties  and  forties,  and  the  pipits 
running  and  fluttering  over  the  weedy  patches.  Should 
a  frost  dig  its  nails  in  hard,  they  will  make  for  the 
river  and  pick  about  among  the  stones  and  mud  like 
their  cousins,  the  rock-pipits  on  the  seashore.1  Dun- 
nocks  prefer  holding  on  to  the  allotments  and  the 
apology  for  a  hedge  round  the  orchard,  and  even 
adventuring  among  the  virgin  forests  of  artichoke  in 
default  of  more  congenial  surroundings.  I  become 
more  and  more  convinced  of  the  elasticity  of  bird- 
life  and  readiness  to  change  its  habits  when  occasion 
demands.  Among  the  higher  animals,  instinct,  un- 
coupled by  a  vigilant  intelligence,  would  poorly  serve 
the  needs  of  daily  life.  I  once  was  present  at  an 
upheaval  in  the  mild  dunnock  world,  when  half  a 
dozen  of  them  assembled  to  shoo  a  cat  away  in  a 
chorus  of  alarm-cries.  The  cat  yielded  the  field  to 
the  reinforcement  of  my  little  red  dog,  and  one  of 
the  vicarious  victors  at  once  burst  into  song,  less  in 
triumph  than  relief,  albeit  a  savage  east  wind  was 
sweeping  the  plain. 

Apart  from  the  skylarks,  the  kindest  sight  among 
the  small  birds  hereabouts  are  the  greenfinches  and 
wagtails.  Now  and  again  I  have  seen  as  many  as 
thirty  of  the  former  in  a  single  flock,  undulating 
through  the  air  and  uttering  their  glad,  inflected 

1  The  pipits  pair  as  early  as  February,  though  they  do  not 
remain  to  nest ;  and  the  larks,  if  the  weather  is  not  too  severe, 
disband  about  the  middle  of  the  same  month.  "  Internal  rhythms  " 
respond  to  "  external  periodicities." 


100       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

twitter  like  a  wavelet  or  a  vibration  of  ether  or  the 
birds'  own  flight ;  or  erect  on  the  tops  of  bushes  and 
pea  and  artichoke  stalks,  little  shining  green  knights 
with  golden  swords  strapped  to  their  thighs.  Wagtails 
are  quite  numerous,  and  so  my  walks  over  the  same 
ground  were  always  insured  against  dullness.  They 
trod  the  dark  ploughland  with  their  mincing  steps, 
tossing  their  heads  backwards  and  forwards  like  Indian 
balancers,  or  took  erratic  wing  to  alight  again  with 
a  sudden  switching  off  of  the  current  of  flight,  turning 
right  about  face.  Here,  too,  they  cultivated  the 
charming  habit  of  perching  and  swaying  on  the  tips 
of  the  cabbage  leaves.  Wherever  men  worked  in  the 
fields,  these  Robin  Goodfellows  came  dancing  down  to 
them,  and  to  see  birds  in  close  touch  with  men,  each 
benefiting  the  other,  is  to  me  ever  beautiful  and 
moving.  I  never  saw  them  other  than  in  pairs, 
and  often  toying  and  sporting  with  their  mates, 
even  in  frosty  weather.  If  the  pairing  instinct  thus 
survives  the  pairing  season,  as  I  have  observed  with 
numerous  species,  it  must  be  something  more  than 
a  pairing  instinct.  Human  backs  are  expressive  psycho- 
logical indexes,  but  wagtails  speak,  argue,  expostulate, 
and  declaim  with  their  tails.  Wrens,  robins  and  thrushes 
are  fairly  well  distributed,  but  nothing  is  to  be  seen 
in  these  parts  of  the  autumnal  migrations  of  the 
younger  robin  generation,  the  country  being  far  too 
open  for  them,  and  the  succulent  smoking  manure 
heaps  appealing  more  to  starlings  and  finches.  Still, 
we  have  about  a  dozen  residents.  The  pleasant 
sparrow  vespers  to  the  declining  sun  are  music  that 
London  could  ill  spare. 

Omitting  the  gulls,  our  remaining  large  land  birds 
in  the  autumn  are  the  mistle- thrush,  kestrel,  carrion  crow 
and  wood-owl. 

The  wood-owl  is  with  us  practically  all  the  year 
round,  and  probably  nests  in  Richmond  Park,  for  not 
only  does  it  nightly  enliven  the  darkness  with  its 
wind-in-the-chimney  music,  summer  and  winter,  but 
often  brings  young  with  it  in  the  autumn,  whose 
kee-wick,  kee-wick  alternates  with  the  deep,  hollow  notes 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  101 

of  the  parent.1  During  the  late  summer :  of .  1920  a 
tawny  owl  used  to  perch  on  a  sycamore  ,te6t !  near 
my  window  every  day  at  dusk,  before  sotting  out 
darkling  for  the  chase,  and  I  once  flushed  one  of 
them  from  a  cedar  in  private  grounds  at  mid-day, 
and  he  departed  in  full  hooting  trim.  It  is  strange 
that  the  wood-owl  should  be  so  much  commoner  in 
London  than  the  barn-owl,  whom  an  imbecile  perse- 
cution has  now  made  the  rarer  bird  all  over  England. 
On  July  5,  1920,  a  yaffle  actually  flew  over  my  garden 
and  back  again  five  minutes  later,  the  only  occasion 
I  have  seen  this  species  in  London  outside  Richmond 
Park  and  Wimbledon  Common.  The  wandering  gipsy 
parties  of  imstle-thrushes  formed  in  the  summer  break 
up  in  December,  and  early  in  November  (1919)  one  of 
them  (they  usually  go  straight  over  in  parties  of  about 
half  a  dozen)  spent  a  few  days  in  the  orchard  and  on 
the  fields,  greeting  me  with  their  boisterous,  girding 
cries  of  derision  whenever  I  trespassed  upon  them. 
When  their  adventurous,  masculine  spirits  urged  them 
onwards,  they  left  a  pair  behind  for  several  weeks  to 
keep  me  company,  and  I  once  watched  one  of  them 
amusing  himself  about  one  of  the  orchard  trees, 
circling  it,  plunging  to  and  fro  among  its  branches, 
skirmishing  about  over  its  top  and  diving  down  within 
a  few  feet  of  the  ground.  The  relationship  of  this 
air-dog  with  the  susceptible  song-thrush  is  piquant. 
They  are  as  unlike  as  it  is  possible  for  one  bird  to  be 
from  another,  and  only  buoyancy  their  share  in  com- 
mon, the  one  in  facing  perils,  the  other  in  recovering 
from  them.  There  is  a  poem  in  my  friend  Ralph 
Hodgson's  The  Last  Blackbird  which  gives  the  mistle- 
thrush  as  no  other  can. 

I  heard  the  grey  thrush  piping  loud 

From  the  wheezing  chestnut-tree ; 

The  grey  thrush  gripped  the  spray  that  bowed 

Beneath  the  storm,  and  brave  sang  he — 

O,  he  sang  brave  as  he  were   3ne 

Who  hailed  a  people  newly  free, 

are  two  stanzas. 

1  The  parent  also  kee~wicks,  but  I  made  sure  these  were  young. 


102       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

The  Kestrel  (one  bird)  may  or  may  not  stay  with 
us  during  the  winter — it  depends  on  the  weather- 
but  in  the  autumn  he  is  roaming  about  within  half 
a  mile  of  my  house  two  or  three  days  in  every  week. 
Everybody  bullies  and  persecutes  him,  from  the  pied- 
wagtail  to  the  black-headed  gull  (except,  of  course,  the 
dunnock,  who  minds  his  own  affairs),  and  he  can 
rarely  hover  in  peace,  but  a  gull  drives  him  off  his 
pitch  or  a  wagtail  puts  him  to  flight,  returning  when 
his  victim  has  disappeared,  shrilling  with  self-applause 
and  intoxicated  with  triumph.  Sometimes  he  hovers 
right  over  the  buses  passing  along  the  river  to  and  fro 
beneath  him,  possibly  for  a  respite.  He  got  quite  used 
to  me,  and  often  allowed  me  to  come  within  thirty  yards 
of  him  and  admire  his  beautiful  striated  plumage,  when 
perched  on  the  handle  of  a  plough  or  on  a  manure  heap, 
or  preening  himself  on  one  of  the  white  posts  on  the 
recreation  ground,  or  on  the  transverse  bar  of  the  goal- 
posts with  that  proud,  statuesque  air  all  the  raptors, 
except  the  buzzards,  have.  Or  he  would  be  flying 
leisurely  on  pointed  wings  and  oaring  his  slender  shafted 
body  a  few  inches  from  the  ground,  or  suspended  in  air 
with  pulsing  wing-beats.  To  other  birds  he  never  pays 
the  smallest  attention,  except  to  give  dignified  place 
to  them,  though  it  is  hard  even  for  him  to  look  the 
fine  bird  he  is  with  a  feather-headed  wagtail  screeching 
at  his  heels.  It  is  always  a  puzzle  to  me  to  under- 
stand what  the  kestrel  expects  to  find  on  a  bare 
patch  of  ground  his  eyes  peer  down  upon  with  such 
intentness.1  Would  not  any  sensible  mouse  remain  in 
hiding  with  this  deadly  slayer  of  his  tribe  hanging 
over  him  like  Damocles'  sword  ?  Yet  there  he  is,  as 
absorbed  in  his  researches  as  St.  Jerome  in  his  study 
— like  a  newly  released  soul  taking  its  long,  sad, 
farewell  gaze  at  the  seductively  wicked  world  before 
leaving  it  for  the  arduous  virtues  of  a  better  one. 
In  February  1920  our  kestrel  disappeared,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  month  returned  with  a  mate,  while  on 
July  5th  a  young  bird  flew  past  me  and  alighted  on  a 

1  He  probably  feeds  on  grubs,  beetles,  cockchafers,  earthworms, 
etc.,  as  well  as  rodents. 


BIRD-HAUNTED   LONDON  103 

tree,  calling  his  quaint  squeak.     Presumably,  then,   the 
parents  nested  somewhere  in  the  south-west,  though  I- 
have  no  idea  where. 

But  the  crow,  the  only  disreputable  or  reputedly 
disreputable  member  of  the  whole  suburb,  except  me 
and  the  cats,  is  the  black  angel  of  the  fields  and 
allotments.  He  is  one  of  the  very  few  species  which 
has  increased  with  us  since  Mr.  Hudson  wrote  Birds 
in  London,  and  in  1919  our  pair  safely  brought  off 
four  young  from  a  nest  in  the  top  fork  of  a  tall  elm 
almost  opposite  my  house  on  the  Middlesex  side  of  the 
river.  The  six  of  them  kept  together,  cruising  the 
neighbourhood  throughout  the  summer,  autumn,  and 
winter,  their  corvine  wisdom  being  perfectly  well  aware 
that  these  monotonous  fields  are  a  Jerusalem  of  safety 
and  abundance  for  them. 

I  have  seen  as  many  as  nine  of  them  together  in 
the  air,  shouting,  flying  races  and  buffeting  one  another 
in  mock-battle,  as  many  as  twelve  on  the  fields  and 
twenty-one  feeding  together  on  the  river  ooze  in  the 
autumn  of  1920  ;  doubtless  several  families  joined  forces. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  crow  resuming  its 
ancient  social  habits,  broken  up  by  man  everywhere 
else  in  England  except  perhaps  in  a  few  of  the 
wildest  districts.  And  I  think  that  the  birds  gain 
by  this  in  temperament  and  character,  expanding  and 
fulfilling  their  individualities  in  the  broader  milieu  of 
social  life.  Kropotkin  was  a  wise  man  when  he  said, 
"  Man  did  not  make  Society,  but  Society  man,"  and 
animal  sociability  has  undoubtedly  been  one  of  the 
greatest,  perhaps  with  the  exception  of  parental  care, 
the  greatest  driving  force  of  progressive  evolution. 

Here  the  crow  is  a  plump,  lamb-like  creature,  for 
few  temptations  come  his  way,  and  he  fully  satisfies 
his  hearty  appetite  by  varying  a  grub  with  a  vegetable 
diet,  trundling  down  to  the  river  at  low  tide  to  play 
the  gull  for  pickings  both  on  the  water  and  the  mud, 
when  he  wants  to  dine  out,  or  the  larder  is  bare  in 
cold  weather.  So  comfortably  does  he  live  that  he 
has  sloughed  off  all  his  rustic  cunning  and  wariness, 
and  with  the  easing  of  the  struggle  for  existence,  is  on 


104       BIRDS  OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

very  tolerant  terms  with  the  rest  of  the  feathered. 
But  this  "  O  sweet  content "  has  not  made  him  in 
the  least  gross  and  aldermanic.  What  it  has  done  is 
to  divert  the  energies  he  expends  in  the  country  to  keep 
a  hold  on  life  into  channels  of  enjoyment.  Gravely 
stalking  the  fields,  he  will  suddenly  explode  into  hoarse 
thanksgivings,  craning  out  his  neck,  ruffling  his  plumage 
and  roaring  away  for  minutes  at  a  stretch.  Or  he 
will  balance  himself  on  the  tops  of  the  cabbages  and 
duck  and  flirt  his  tail  to  keep  himself  on.  He  makes 
shameless  love  to  his  wife  half  the  year  round,  and 
with  as  much  youthful  gusto  in  the  summer  as  the 
spring,  before  his  offspring  or  out  of  their  sight. 
Sometimes,  out  of  sheer  abandon  of  spirits,  he  makes 
passes  at  the  gulls,  snapping  his  mandibles  at  their 
necks  when  they  are  feeding  on  the  ground,  and 
desisting  to  soar  and  gambol  in  the  air  in  madcap 
frolics  with  his  family.  These  crows  of  ours  will  chase 
one  another  in  flight  like  clumsy  swallows,  and,  though 
they  cannot  dash  down  wind  in  the  giddy  way  small 
birds  do,  there  is  nothing  they  enjoy  more  than 
setting  their  vans  to  the  wind  and  down  slanting  to 
earth  with  a  rush.  Both  parents  and  young  have 
quite  laid  aside  their  hatred  of  the  human  form,  and, 
as  though  they  enjoyed  giving  Darwin  the  lie,  allow 
me  to  approach  within  ten  yards  or  even  less  without 
turning  a  feather.  Even  when  I  walk  right  in  upon 
them,  they  are  in  no  way  disconcerted,  flopping 
leisurely  off  a  few  inches  from  the  ground,  to  come 
to  earth  again  some  yards  further  on.  Elsewhere  the 
crow  is  all  at  odds  with  the  world ;  here  he  is  on  the 
best  terms  with  it. 

An  incident  I  witnessed  in  October  gave  me  the 
crow's  measure  better  than  any  other  in  my  experience. 
Four  of  them  were  ambling  about  some  fifty  paces 
from  me,  and  what  seemed  to  be  the  tail  of  another 
came  out  from  behind  a  tussock.  It  proved  to  be 
an  all-over  black  cat,  and  the  black  cat  was  in  a 
great  taking  over  the  black  crows.  It  would  stalk  one 
of  them  and  then  make  a  flying  leap  for  him.  What 
did  the  crow  do  ?  He  gazed  contemptuously  at  the 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  105 

cat,  and  when  the  assassin  was  upon  him,  gravely 
took  a  couple  of  sideway  hops  out  of  reach  and 
turned  his  back  on  the  enemy  of  his  race  to  tickle 
his  craw  with  a  leather-jacket.  This  happened  again 
and  again,  and  each  time  one  of  the  crows  evaded 
the  cat's  rush  with  a  mixture  of  ease,  calm  and  mild- 
ness and  an  air  of  "  what  ails  you,  my  good  friend  ?  " 
ludicrously  discomposing  to  the  cat.  The  others,  who 
made  a  circle  round  the  cat,  either  took  no  notice  of  it 
at  all,  or  threw  a  compassionate  glance  over  its  way,  and 
then  back  to  the  grub.  Now  and  then  they  all  stopped 
feeding  and  gazed  at  it  as  we  might  at  some  person 
making  a  fool  of  himself  and  not  aware  of  it.  At  no 
time  was  the  cat  distant  more  than  three  or  four  yards 
from  any  of  the  birds.  Finally,  the  cat  simply  gave 
it  up  and  retired,  looking  so  crestfallen  that  the  crows, 
watching  his  departure,  seemed  to  pity  him  more  than 
ever. 

This  was  not  the  only  cat-and-crow  incident  I  wit- 
nessed. One  day  later  I  saw  this  same  black  cat,  a 
thorough  picaro,  stalking  a  solitary  crow  feeding  on 
the  ploughland  with  his  back  turned  to  the  enemy. 
Suddenly  he  turned  round,  and  this  time  it  was  too 
much.  He  gave  a  shout  of  rage,  leaped  into  the 
air,  hovered  some  feet  over  the  cat  (who  sat  back  on 
his  haunches  as  when  attacked  by  a  dog),  making 
stoops  within  a  few  inches  of  the  feline  nose.  But 
this  was  only  the  first  act.  Finding  that  the  cat 
was  immovable,  friend  crow  sprang  up  higher  into  the 
air  and  began  trumpeting  "  caws "  for  all  he  was 
worth,  paying  no  attention  to  the  cat.  Then,  behold, 
from  different  quarters  came  a  reinforcement  of  two 
crows,  pelting  along  as  hard  as  they  could  go  and  shout- 
ing encouragement  to  the  solitary  warrior.  Having 
joined  forces,  the  three  crows  hovered  down  close  upon 
the  cat,  fluttering  their  wings,  swooping  down  upon 
him  and  singing  hoarse  battle-songs.  This  was  alto- 
gether too  much  for  the  cat,  who  turned  tail,  walked, 
trotted,  galloped,  and  finally  bolted,  pursued  by  the 
triumphant  crows  right  into  the  street,  two  hundred 
yards  away,  when  they  gave  it  up.  The  drama  occurred 


106      BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

exactly  as  I  have  related  it,  and  I  believe  it  is  worth 
relating,  since  I  have  never  before  seen  so  remarkable 
an  example  of  intelligent  co-operation  among  birds, 
following  upon  a  deliberate  summons  for  assistance. 
Whether  other  people  take  any  notice  of  our  crows,  I 
do  not  know,  but  for  the  constant  refreshment  they 
have  given  me  I  am  truly  grateful  to  them.1 

On  an  iron-bound  day  early  in  February  1919, 
with  flakes  of  snow  hurling  almost  horizontally  past 
me,  I  met  with  two  pairs  of  grey  wagtails,  the  first 
time  I  had  seen  them  in  London,  looking  like  strayed 
wanderers  from  some  brighter  world  in  their  exquisite 
grey  and  yellow  feathers,  ruffled  in  the  bitter  wind. 
This  wagtail  turned  up  again  next  winter,  and  this 
time  a  mile  nearer  in.  I  saw  one  running  and  feeding 
along  the  embankment  on  December  22nd,  and  four 
days  later  close  to  the  same  place,  but  flying  over 
the  fields.  He  has  the  true  wagtailian  double  note, 
but  it  is  not  so  thick  and  sibilant — altogether  brighter 
and  more  abrupt.  On  January  14th  I  was  so  for- 
tunate as  to  meet  the  grey  in  the  fields  in  company 
with  pipits  and  a  pair  of  pied  wagtails,  and  I  had 
a  rare  opportunity  of  comparing  their  notes.  When 
they  are  heard  together  the  difference  is  marked,  and 
the  grey's  twice  and  sharply  struck  bell,  pure  in  in- 
tonation, is  much  superior  in  quality  to  the  more 
relaxed  and  consonantal  note  of  the  pied.  They  differ 
as  the  duskiness  of  the  one  bird  differs  from  the  un- 
compromised  grey  and  yellow  of  the  other.  It  gives 
one  a  rich  sense  of  the  artistic  progress  of  evolution  to 
reflect  that  pipit  and  grey  wagtail  both  are  descended 
from  a  generalized  type  as  dull  in  colouring  as  the 
pipits.  From  it  arose  the  sylph-like  Motacillidce,  as 
the  Ancient  Mariner  arose  like  Aphrodite  from  the  sun- 
less expanse  of  Shelvocke's  voyages.  Thus  nature  plays 
her  endless  variations  upon  her  plain  and  single  theme 
of  praise,  a  Cecilia,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  courts  of 
heaven. 

1  One  of  the  briskest  and  most  intimate  accounts  of  crows  I 
know  is  in  Lieut. -Colonel  Cunningham's  Some  Indian  Friends 
and  Acquaintances. 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  107 

Had  this  evil  time  lasted  a  week  longer  than  it 
did,  the  mortality  must  have  been  a  heavy  one,  and, 
as  it  was,  those  oozy  shallows  saved  many  of  the 
feathered  from  untimely  death.  It  is  starvation,  not 
cold,  that  kills  the  birds — its  tooth  is  not  so  keen  to 
penetrate  their  warm  wrappings  and  intensely  beating 
heart  beneath  it,  unless  insufficient  food  and  drink 
can  slow  it  down. 

Darwin,  it  will  be  remembered,  projected  a  study 
of  natural  checks  to  over-population,  and  it  is  a  great 
pity  that  he  did  not  write  it,  since  it  must  have  very 
largely  modified  the  paragraph  headed  "  Struggle  for 
Life  Most  Severe  between  Individuals  and  Varieties 
of  the  Same  Species  "  in  the  Origin  of  Species,  a  para- 
graph (with  very  inadequate  evidence  to  it)  mainly 
responsible  for  the  now  superannuated  theory  that  the 
system  of  nature  is  an  incarnadined  "  gladiatorial  show." 
It  is  a  great  pity,  for  that  theory  has  perhaps  done 
more  harm,  inflicted  more  misery,  and  sanctioned  the 
rapacious  spirit  of  commercialism  more  thoroughly  than 
any  other  idea  of  civilized  times.  It  would  be  im- 
possible here  so  much  as  to  attempt  to  describe  how 
that  theory  has  been  displaced  by  a  broader  and 
deeper  reading  of  animate  nature,  but  it  is  relevant  to 
point  out  that,  quite  apart  from  the  quintessential  im- 
portance of  migration  as  a  method  of  solving  the 
economic  problem  of  feeding  many  mouths  with  little 
food,  birds  actually  combine  rather  than  compete 
together  when  food  is  scarce.  The  phenomenon  of 
winter  flocks  is  entirely  against  the  competition  theory, 
and  one  is  inclined  to  invite  those  museum  specialists 
with  their  dismal  illusions  of  nature's  fratricidal 
warfare  to  step  into  the  open  air  and  watch  a  winter 
procession  of  tits.  For  one  tit  in  a  flock  of  tits  can 
find  more  food  than  if  he  were  solitary,  since  he 
depends  on  a  hundred  eyes  rather  than  on  two, 
apart  from  other  advantages  for  self-preservation. 
The  conditions  of  inanimate  nature  are  equally  against 
the  theory.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  world  is  not  over- 
but  under-populated  by  the  higher  animals — far  too 
under-populated,  alas ! — and  climatic  changes  operate 


108       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

in   the   most   direct   and   powerful   manner   to   reducing 
a  local  congestion  of  numbers. 

I  remember  standing  on  the  bridge  one  day  towards 
the  end  of  this  bad  time,  and  watching  two  herons 
circling  over  the  river  among  the  screaming  gulls  in 
front  of  me,  a  kestrel  hovering  on  my  left  hand, 
flocks  of  ducks  passing  overhead  (doubtless  on  account 
of  the  freezing  of  the  Richmond  and  Wimbledon 
ponds),  on  my  right-hand  lapwings,  water-hens,  star 
lings,  robins,  thrushes  and  blackbirds  trotting  "  on 
the  marge  of  the  angry  flood,"  and  in  the  middle 
of  the  river  a  pair  of  crows  (from  the  Middlesex  side) 
hovering  and  making  little  dashes  at  the  water  as 
gulls  do,  only  much  less  to  the  manner  born.  It 
would  have  been  an  impressive  assembly  anywhere ; 
in  London  it  was  one  to  make  a  cockney  swell  with 
pride,  though  the  actors  thus  brilliantly  taking  their 
parts  were  on  a  starvation  wage.  In  the  December 
of  1920,  again,  a  heavy  snowfall  one  day  coincided 
with  a  yellow  fog.  I  walked  out  into  the  silent  fields 
and  stood  up  to  my  calves  in  snow.  An  invisible 
heron  and  shortly  after  him  a  crow  rasped  out  their 
calls,  and  a  company  of  tufted  duck  followed  a 
minute  later  by  one  of  mallard  swung  out  of  the 
day-in-night  and,  sweeping  over  my  head,  passed 
again,  like  vain  longings,  into  the  unknown.  In  this 
life-in-death  desolation  there  was  nothing  in  sight, 
nothing  in  hearing,  nothing  in  atmosphere  to  tell  me 
that  I  was  not  standing,  a  lost  and  solitary  wanderer, 
in  the  midst  of  the  Siberian  tundras. 

For  one  thing  we  may  thank  these  recent  years 
of  misery  and  terror.  The  Yuletide-cum-Pears'-Annual 
cant  has  received  a  mortal  stroke.  The  virus  of  cold 
is  now  faced  for  what  it  is,  the  signal  for  the  death 
of  the  children  of  earth  and  air,  the  ally  and  accusa- 
tion of  our  egoism,  greed  and  more  merciless  indiffer- 
ence. But  let  us  beware  of  blaming  nature  for  our 
own  frosted  hearts,  since  neither  child  nor  bird  need 
die,  did  we  play  the  true  parts  in  the  drama  of  the 
universe  which  the  dignity  of  our  evolution  has 
assigned  to  us. 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  109 

The  gulls  only  keep  to  the  river  in  large  numbers 
in  severe  weather,  and  at  other  times  forage  far 
afield,  returning  to  the  river  at  about  four  o'clock 
to  roost  in  their  communal  dormitory  on  the  river.  In 
the  beginning  of  1919  I  saw  a  superb  flight  of  gulls — 
hundreds  of  them — returning  to  roost  along  the  river, 
all  in  order,  solemnity  and  silence  (usually  they  fly 
in  undisciplined  masses),  and  formed  into  every  variety 
of  loose  position,  squares,  parallelograms,  semicircles, 
and  the  familiar  V  or  rather  \/  shapes — symmetrical 
dispositions,  which  yet  allowed  the  fullest  scope  for 
freedom  and  diversity  within  the  bounds  of  the 
general  law  and  unity  they  obeyed.  At  another  time 
I  disturbed  a  flock  of  gulls  feeding  on  ploughland, 
and  as  they  rose  in  mass  it  chanced  that  they  hung 
for  a  moment  over  the  dark  earth  in  undulating  folds 
about  a  hundred  feet  long  and  twenty  broad,  like 
some  fabulous  flying  serpent  with  glittering  and  waving 
scales.  Scenes  of  unearthly  beauty  come  purely  by 
chance  in  the  uncertain  world  of  bird-life,  but  they 
come  not  at  all  unless  one's  observations  of  it  are 
unrelaxing.  Thus  I  cannot  count  the  times  I  wandered 
along  the  river-bank,  admiring  the  gull  company 
wheeling  over  the  river,  swimming  it  and  strolling 
the  mud-banks  in  a  ceaseless  clamour  of  high,  windy 
voices.  But  only  once  did  I  see  them  transfigured 
(on  December  16,  1919)  to  a  glory  rarely  granted  to 
human  eyes.  It  chanced  that  afternoon  that  the  sun, 
lying  flat  over  against  the  river,  heaved  the  clouds 
off  him  and  thrust  his  yellow  body  through  them, 
sending  the  wrack  flying  in  trailing  wreaths  and 
scarves,  like  the  spray  and  wash  off  the  back  of  a 
risen  whale.  At  once  the  ooze  of  the  banks  was 
resolved  into  a  floor  of  burnished  gold,  throwing  off 
an  orange-coloured  haze,  through  which  Sinbad's  valley 
came  flying  a  flock  of  gulls  of  such  supernaturally 
delicate  white  and  pearl  that  they  became  diaphanous, 
emblems  of  pure  thought  drifting  through  a  golden  age 
of  meditation.  It  was  the  kind  of  sight  that  might 
have  converted  an  unbeliever  to  heaven.  Yet  in  its 
way  it  was  only  an  optical  delusion,  since  without  the 
glass  the  effect  was  only  beautiful. 


110       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  we  are  only 
honoured  with  one  species  of  gull,  and  in  bad  weather 
I  have  noticed  no  fewer  than  four  within  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  of  my  house — black-headed,  common,  herring 
and  lesser  black-backed,  though  never  more  than 
about  a  dozen  of  the  last  species  all  told.  But  in 
1919  I  noticed  two  immature  brown  herring  gulls  on 
the  flats  among  a  company  of  about  a  hundred 
blackheads  on  a  very  warm  and  humid  day  in 
December,  so  that  other  species  of  gull  are  also 
founding  a  tradition  of  wintering  in  London,  one, 
too,  of  determination  when  young  birds  help  to  make 
it.  This  assembly  was  a  remarkable  one  in  other 
ways,  for  it  included  four  crows,  a  pair  of  water-hens, 
a  small  flock  of  starlings,  a  pair  of  wood-pigeons, 
and  a  dabchick.  I  had  never  seen  a  dabchick  on 
the  river  before,  and  its  movements  were  as  peculiar 
as  its  presence.  It  was  swimming  downstream  with 
great  speed,  diving  every  minute  or  so  to  increase  it. 
Then,  when  it  caught  sight  and  ear  of  this  vociferous 
crowd,  it  made  straight  for  them,  and  at  the  edge 
of  the  water  had  a  tremendous  bath,  beating  up  a 
mist  of  water  with  its  violently  agitated  wings. 
Having  thus  passed  the  time  of  day  with  the  others, 
it  set  off  again  into  the  unknown,  as  mysterious  to 
me  in  its  coming  as  its  going. 

It  is,  of  course,  practically  impossible  to  distinguish 
the  common  from  the  black-headed  gull1  during  the 
winter,  but  I  noticed  that  the  nuptial  black  or  rather 
dark  chocolate-brown  hood  of  the  blackheads  was 
assumed  among  many  of  the  latter  (doubtless  the 
older  birds)  as  early  in  1918  as  February  1st,  a  day 
of  implacable  snow,  and  January  7th  in  1919.  By 
the  middle  of  March  you  could  be  sure  that  the  few 
capless  gulls  of  the  size  of  the  blackheads  were  of 
the  "  common "  species,  as  silly  a  misnomer  as  that 

1  There  is,  however,  a  difference.  The  primaries  of  the 
"  common  "  gull  are  longer,  with  white  "  mirrors  "  near  the  ends  ; 
its  build  is  squarer,  and  its  bill  is  without  the  reds  or  orange  of  the 
blackheads.  See  T.  A.  Coward's  precise  and  brilliant  manual 
for  further  distinctions.  The  birds  are  equal  in  size. 


BIRD-HAUNTED   LONDON  111 

of  the  "  common  "  bunting,  for  they  have  not  a  single 
breeding-station  in  England.  The  lesser  blackbacks, 
sprinkled  among  the  blackheads,  and  illuminating  their 
pearls  and  whites  by  the  rich  contrast  of  their  own 
dark  cloaks,  will  occasionally  busy  themselves  in  the 
fields,  and  1  once  flushed  one  of  them  within  fifty 
yards  of  my  house.  Assuredly,  the  breaking  in  upon 
us  cockneys  of  these  wild  fays  of  wave  and  cliff,  like 
masquers  upon  a  gloomy  hall,  is  a  peaceful  conquest 
of  nature  that  prophesies  a  brighter,  if  distant  future. 

I  have  seen  great  crested  grebes  on  many  occasions 
all  the  year  round  in  the  district,  both  on  the  river  and 
the  reservoirs.  Their  appearances  are  quite  incalculable, 
and  they  are  quite  approachable.  My  first  bird  was 
extraordinarily  tame,  and  it  once  dived  and  reappeared 
in  a  couple  of  minutes  almost  at  my  feet,  when  it  set  to 
work  preening  its  feathers  and  standing  up  to  wave 
its  absurdly  stunted  wings  without  a  trace  of  concern. 
All  the  loons  have  these  short  wings,  yet  some  of 
them  migrate  over  vast  distances,  and  there  is  nothing 
to  show  that  their  aquatic  life  is  affecting  their  wing- 
power.  That  would  only  happen  if  it  was  no  longer 
of  any  service  to  them  or  they  fell  into  lazy  habits. 
For  nature  is  the  most  impartial  and  democratic  of 
mothers,  and  gives  to  all  her  children  their  oppor- 
tunities and  their  perils,  and  a  free  will  and  means 
to  benefit  by  the  ones  and  escape  from  the  others. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  big  grebe  uses  his  wings  very 
much  more  often  than  the  books  allow.  On  Penn 
Ponds,  where  there  are  three  pairs,  I  have  several 
times  seen  them  in  rapid  flight  a  few  inches  above  the 
surface  of  the  water.  Their  wedge-shaped  bodies  enable 
them,  when  they  alight  on  the  water,  to  plough  through 
it  like  a  shearwater. 

My  district  possesses  both  a  pond  and  a  reservoir, 
but  the  water-hens  wisely  keep  to  the  river,  dis- 
appearing (in  1918-19  we  had  four)  in  March.  But 
the  reservoir,  too,  had  its  own  fame  and  endowment, 
being  occupied  by  a  large  party  of  tufted  duck,  pochards, 
mallards,  and  coots.  No  "  ornamental  water-fowl " 
these,  but  at  liberty  to  come  and  go  as  they  list, 


112       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

free  both  from  the  fowler  who  kills  and  the  keeper 
who  cripples,  and  so  a  distinction  to  my  neighbour- 
hood in  proportion  as  it  is  better  to  receive  and 
enjoy  the  gift  as  it  comes  than  to  compel  and  spoil 
it.  When  disturbed,  they  took  flight,  beating  along 
the  water  like  moorhens,  except  that  they  did  not 
touch  it  and  frequently  taking  extended  flights, 
descending  to  water  with  a  rush  of  wings.  In  the 
water  they  look  stout  and  thickset  of  build,  their 
bright  yellow  irides  sparkling  from  their  purple-black 
heads  with  pendant  crests,  and  the  stretch  of  dead 
white  on  the  flanks,  very  different  from  the  glowing 
sheen  of  the  big  grebe's  breast,  lower  breast  and 
belly  rimming  the  violet  glossed  black  of  the  backs 
rather  in  the  shape  of  an  Indian  canoe.  They  used 
to  dive  and  bring  up  their  meals  from  the  bottom  to  eat 
comfortably  on  the  surface,  and  thereby  hangs  a  tale. 

The  tufted  ducks  fed  at  various  times  of  the  day, 
and  I  noticed  that  Larus  ridibundus  invariably  called 
upon  them  at  meal-time.  To  my  delight,  I  discovered 
that  this  gull,  taking  a  leaf  out  of  his  cousin,  the 
skua's,  book,  had  established  a  definite,  formal  and 
orderly  parasitic  relationship  with  the  duck  he  gulled.  One 
day  ninety-six  tufted  ducks  were  attended  by  some  thirty 
gulls,  and  as  soon  as  one  of  the  former  went  down, 
a  gull  placed  himself  in  the  neighbourhood.  The  duck 
reappeared,  and  the  gull  (sometimes  a  pair  of  them) 
left  the  water,  hovered  a  yard  or  two  above  the  duck's 
back,  and  swooped  gently  down  upon  the  innocent. 
Down  went  the  duck  again,  dropping  his  food  on  the 
surface,  the  gull  half  submerging  to  recover  it.  The 
stoop  was  obviously  made  with  the  intention  of 
flustering  the  duck,  a  stratagem  successful  nine  times 
out  of  ten.  The  same  process  took  place  with  the 
other  gulls  and  day  after  day.  The  experimental 
stage  was  long  past,  and  yet  I  believe  I  have  the 
honour  of  being  the  first  to  record  this  secret.  The 
food  of  the  duck  was  neither  weed  nor  fish  on  the 
occasions  I  watched  this  ingenuity,  but  so  far  as  I 
could  guess,  water-snails  (Limnea),  limpets  (Ancylus), 
and  other  freshwater  molluscs. 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  113 

I  have  observed  myself  (and  Mr.  Edmund  Selous 
says  the  same  thing)  that  the  blackhead  also  pursues 
lapwings  who  have  picked  up  larvae  from  the  ploughed 
fields.  The  gull  chases  the  lapwing,  who  doubles  to  and 
fro,  until  suddenly  the  former  gives  a  convulsive  twist 
in  the  air — he  has  caught  the  larva  dropped  by  the 
lapwing.  Yet  the  gulls  live  quite  amicably  with  the 
ducks  and  lapwings ;  there  is  neither  animosity  on 
the  one  hand  nor  fear  on  the  other.  The  relation  (and 
Mr.  Selous's  observations  of  gulls  with  lapwings  suggest 
the  same  conclusion)  is  accepted  on  both  sides ;  it  has 
become  institutional,  and  the  victims  accept  this  tribute- 
levying  or  Income-Tax-gathering  as  part  of  the  normal 
routine  of  life.  Is  mankind  less  or  more  fatalistically 
irrational  ? 

So  different  are  the  dingy  browns  and  greys  of 
the  female  tufted  ducks  from  the  strongly  contrasted 
blacks  and  whites  of  the  males,  that  at  some  distance 
away  the  two  might  readily  be  taken  for  different  species. 
The  colours  of  females  and  young,  of  course,  usually 
represent  the  parent  form  of  the  species,  where  the 
males  (see  Pycraft,  Courtship  of  Animals)  have  not 
yet  handed  on  their  colour  entail  to  the  females. 
Thus  to  see  the  bright  male  and  the  dull  female  of 
the  same  species  together  is  an  impressive  shorthand 
of  the  progress  of  evolution,  of  the  great  advancing 
tide  of  beauty,  rolling  up  like  dawn  and  then  day 
from  the  caverns  of  neutral  beginning.  It  is  moving  to 
think  of  these  wild  birds  of  the  wild  north  travelling  from 
their  storm-beaten  homes  in  one  little  group  after 
another,  all  to  the  same  little  stretch  of  quiet  water 
in  London,  so  unerringly  and  companionably,  and  to 
see  them  grow,  first  7,  then  9,  then  15,  then  18,  then 
21,  then  35  in  the  winter  of  1920,  to  a  final  crescendo 
of  120,  with  12  pochard,  a  bridge  (the  mantle)  of  the 
softest  vermiculated  lavender-grey  uniting  with  the 
black  tail-coverts  and  the  chestnut  head  and  neck,  in 
their  company.  The  good  news  of  the  security  of  this 
London  water  had  gone  forth.  By  the  end  of  March 
they  had  all  gone.  Mallards  and  (once)  a  widgeon  con- 
sorted with  them. 

8 


114       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

The  skylarks  rarely  left  the  fields.  I  had  a  remark- 
able experience  with  these  larks.  On  January  29th 
(1919)  I  disturbed  a  round  hundred  of  them  from 
a  large  turnip  field,  and  instead  of  flying  off  close 
to  the  ground  with  their  loud,  thick,  guttural  chirps 
of  alarm  (which  are  woven  into  the  song  when  heard 
close  at  hand),  to  alight  further  off,  as  is  their 
usual  custom,  they  massed  into  a  dense  column  and 
began  to  circle  round  and  round  me.  The  flight  was 
an  undulating  one,  and  the  birds  would  sometimes  dip 
almost  to  the  ground  and  sweep  up  from  it  again  in 
an  intoxicating  surge  of  brown  bodies.  They  continued 
their  aerial  evolutions,  wheeling  and  looping  round  my 
head  for  nearly  four  minutes.  Finally  the  whole  flock 
came  to  the  ground  some  twenty  yards  from  where 
I  stood,  and  wonderful  it  was  to  see  how  they  did 
it.  They  did  not  drop  to  the  ground  in  a  shower 
as  linnets  do,  but  swam  down  to  it,  the  vanguard 
ranks  of  the  column  sweeping  low  and  parallel  to 
the  ground,  slowing  down  until  they  came  almost 
imperceptibly  to  rest,  the  higher  ranks  behind  them 
curving  down  to  the  same  position  and  so  on  until 
all  of  them  were  on  the  ground.  Never  for  a  single 
moment  did  a  bird  of  them  fall  out  of  his  place,  and 
I  was  able  to  observe  the  continuity  of  the  slope 
right  up  to  the  moment  when  the  foremost  ranks 
came  to  earth.  As  they  flew  round  my  head  they 
kept  on  passing  a  large  brick  building  fifty  yards 
away,  and  the  browns  of  their  backs  would  leap  into 
vision  as  the  birds  passed  between  it  and  me  and 
fade  into  duskiness  again  as  they  came  out  against 
the  sky.  If  this  was  not  the  most  beautiful,  it  was 
certainly  one  of  the  strangest  displays  of  bird-life 
I  have  ever  seen.  I  was  grieved  to  see  that  the 
larks  were  less  numerous  in  the  winter  of  1919-20, 
and  their  numbers,  as  I  carefully  ascertained  by 
repeated  countings,  at  no  time  went  beyond  sixty. 
One  of  them  was  splashed  with  white  instead  of 
tawny  on  the  margins  of  the  feathers  of  the  back, 
so  that  by  the  time  these  words  are  printed  I  suppose 
some  pedant  will  have  him  in  a  glass  case.  Linnets 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  115 

are  sometimes  to  be  seen  on  the  river  tow-path,  wind- 
tossed  balls  with  ambrosial  voices.  Strange  to  meet 
such  a  bird  in  London.  Possibly  the  linnet  is  the  most 
amiable  of  all  living  creatures,  including  man.  The 
jealous  exclusiveness  of  the  love  season  affects  him 
not,  his  volatile  spirit  is  all  neighbourliness.  The 
linnet  is  the  moonstone  in  the  crown  of  nature,  yet 
for  all  his  fragility  and  gentleness,  he  lives  and 
thrives,  while  Dinotherium,  Monstrum,  horrendum,  ingens 
sleeps  for  ever  in  the  vaults  of  the  British  Museum. 

I  occasionally  saw  rooks  (no  doubt  from  the  Rich- 
mond rookery)  in  very  small  parties,  but  they  rarely 
traverse  this  district,  and  are  only  passengers  when 
they  do.  The  sparrow-hawk,  again,  is  much  rarer  than 
the  kestrel,  but  I  have  seen  one  three  or  four  times 
flying  by.  On  one  occasion  it  passed  right  over  my 
house,  hotly  pursued  by  a  gallant  party  of  pied 
wagtails.  Four  of  them  dropped  out,  but  the  fifth 
still  maintained  the  chase,  to  return,  tossed  down  the 
wind,  in  a  babble  of  triumph.  What  are  the  stories 
of  knight-errants  overwhelming  ogres,  giants  and 
dragons  to  the  dauntlessness  of  this  Lancelot  of  the 
Passerine  Order,  leaving  his  fellows  to  go  hue  and 
cry  after  the  invincible  enemy  of  his  little  nation,  since 
no  family  cares  steeled  his  fiery  heart  ? 

Fieldfares  are  very  irregular  visitors  and  only  birds 
of  passage,  though  I  very  occasionally  flushed  a  few 
from  the  orchard  in  the  winters  both  of  1918-19 
and  1919-20.  In  March  1919  I  once  saw  a  pair  of 
redwings  fly  into  the  open  fields  from  the  orchard, 
fly  and  disappear  westward  speedy  as  thought  (they 
are  the  fastest  fliers,  as  they  are  the  handsomest  of 
the  British  Turdince),  and  that  was  the  first  and  last 
I  ever  saw  of  them.  Early  in  February  1919  I  had 
what  I  believe  is  a  unique  experience.  I  was  watching 
a  large  assembly  of  finches  feeding  from  piled  manure 
heaps  on  the  Middlesex  side  of  the  river,  when  I  saw 
to  my  glad  surprise  that  among  the  sparrows,  chaf- 
finches and  greenfinches  there  were  thirty  tree-sparrows 
and  bramblings,  the  males  of  the  latter,  with  their 
fawn  breasts,  mottled  white  rumps  and  upper  plumage 


116       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

slashed  and  chequered  with  orange  buff,  chestnut  and 
white  being  easily  the  first  and  boldest  in  beauty.1 
Bramblings  are  an  uncommon  sight  anywhere  in 
England  during  the  winter  (they  nest  overseas) ;  in 
London  I  doubt  whether  they  have  been  observed 
anywhere  for  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years.  Passer 
montanus  is  a  much  prettier  bird  than  Passer  domesticus, 
and  easily  distinguishable  from  it  by  its  sleeker 
plumage,  comelier  shape,  chestnut  head,  white  collar 
round  the  neck,  and  conspicuous  double  wing-stripes. 
Unlike  the  house-sparrow,  too,  he  does  not  "  affect 
neighbourhoods."  Ralph  Hodgson  told  me  he  found 
a  lesser  redpole's  nest  within  a  dozen  miles  of  the 
centre  of  London,  and  Mr.  G.  A.  B.  Dewar  relates 
in  Wild  Life  in  the  Hampshire  Highlands  that 
the  butcher-bird  and  tree-sparrow  nested  the  same 
distance  away  in  '98.  I  found  my  bramblings  and 
tree-sparrows  less  than  six  miles  from  Charing  Cross, 
and  they  stayed  for  the  rest  of  the  winter  except 
to  make  a  migratory  movement  in  March  (si  magna 
licet)  over  to  my  side  of  the  river  within  two  hundred 
yards  of  my  house.  But  they  failed  to  return  in  1919-20. 
Lastly,  to  write  "  Finis "  to  the  winter  with  a 
flourish,  I  have  seen  both  the  common  snipe  and 
the  wheatear,  the  one  within  one  hundred  and  fifty, 
the  other  two  hundred,  yards  of  my  house.  I 
flushed  the  snipe  on  November  18th  of  last  year 
from  (of  all  places)  a  cabbage  field,  and,  giving  its 
strident  cry,  the  bird  zigzagged  off  in  its  Chinese 
puzzle  flight  high  up  over  the  houses  and  the  road 
where  the  buses  run.  Snipe,  then,  are  not  exclusively 
confined  to  marshy  ground ;  even  the  Charadriidce, 
so  specialized  for  particular  localities,  are  capable  of 
changing  ground.  This  bird  was  probably  an  immi- 
grant from  abroad,  strayed  from  its  course.  The 
wheatear  I  saw  on  ploughed  land  on  March  13th,  and 
it  was  gone  the  next  day.  The  wheatear  has  been 
recorded  two  or  three  times,  I  believe,  in  London,  but 

1  The  winter  plumage,  of  course,  is  more  obscure  than  the 
spring,  the  brilliant  contrasts  being  edged  over  with  minute 
wavelets  of  brown  feathers. 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  117 

never  so  early  as  this.  He  got  his  name  into  the  papers  ! 
Such  visitations  from  birds  of  marsh  and  virgin  upland 
do  indeed  blow  away  the  missish  stuffiness  of  Suburbia. 


ni 

The  spring  with  us  is  not  by  any  means  the  season 
of  rejoicing  and  renewal  it  is  elsewhere.  The  sombre, 
brown  fields  hardly  smile  when  warmer  airs  fan  their 
weather-beaten  cheeks  and  trees,  bushes,  hedges  and 
wild  flowers  are  too  few  for  a  profusion  of  "  budded 
quicks."  Apart  from  the  trees,  we  have  little,  out- 
side a  few  hawthorns,  to  measure  the  season  by 
except  the  elderberry.  In  the  babe-like  winter  of 
1919-20,  the  stiff,  metallic,  coppery-green  leaves  of 
this  somewhat  surly  and  plebeian  plant  were  out 
in  the  first  week  of  February,  and  in  the  middle  of 
January  in  1921.  It  is  by  loss,  not  enrichment,  then, 
that  we  measure  the  retreat  of  winter,  bawled  at  and 
buffeted  as  he  yields  a  reluctant  field  to  the  March 
winds,  like  mistle-thrushes  driving  off  a  hawk.  For 
the  winter  congregations  gradually  break  up  and  steal 
away,  reintegrating  if  the  temperature  drops,  yet 
leaving  us  poorer  almost  day  by  day,  and  only  re- 
turning when  the  nesting  season  is  over.  Blackbird,  dun- 
nock,  ring-dove,  throstle,  robin,  tits,  starling,  crow,  and, 
strange  and  handsome  to  record,  linnet  and  yellow  wagtail, 
alone  nested  with  us.  A  pair  of  larks  remained  the 
whole  year,  but  I  never  found  their  nest,  if  they  had 
one.  Rarely  if  ever  do  these  nests  escape  robbery, 
but  it  was  a  sore  thing  to  find  the  linnet's  nest  in 
the  orchard  destroyed  and  the  bluey-white  eggs, 
powdered  with  chestnut  and  purplish-red  spots,  taken. 
In  London  one  sees  more  of  the  autumn  than  the 
spring  migratory  currents,  and  the  only  time  I  heard 
or  saw  anything  of  the  latter  was  on  February  25, 
1919,  when  the  sounds  of  a  great  migrating  host 
(mixed  waders)  billowed  across  the  night  sky.  I  was 
out  in  ten  seconds,  but  could  see  nothing,  though 
the  night  was  cloudless.  To  stand  out  in  the  great 
vault  of  night  under  the  "  bright  patient  stars "  and 


118       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

hear  the  cries  of  the  rushing,  winged  travellers  drifted 
upon  one  from  the  well  of  darkness  is  to  be  pene- 
trated not  only  by  the  unsolved  mystery  of  migra- 
tion, but  the  sublime  miracle  of  all  life,  until  the 
whole  being  responds.  Thus  do  we  pass  onward  from 
the  darkness  of  birth  into  the  darkness  of  life  and  death, 
speeding  forward,  and  unknowing  why  we  travel,  wrhat 
we  pass,  and  whither  we  go,  guided  only  by  the  spiritual 
stars  within  the  firmament  of  night. 

One  curious  nesting  phenomenon  I  must  not  omit. 
I  have  found  half  a  dozen  thrushes'  nests  built  on 
the  terminal  branches  of  large  trees,  fifteen  and  twenty 
feet  above  the  ground.  This  must  be  the  result 

(1)  of  the    few    suitable    nesting    sites    hereabouts,    and 

(2)  of    their    nests    being    invariably    destroyed.     Now, 
if   the    birds    brought    off    their    young    safely    by    this 
new   fashion,    the   variation    would   be   seized    upon   by 
natural  selection  and  perfected   into  semi-automatic  in- 
stinct,   and   the   bush-building    habits    of  town-thrushes 
would  entirely  disappear.     The  change  is  as  revolutionary 
as  if  special  conditions  made  it  necessary  for  a  certain 
village  to  build  its  houses  underground.     Darwin  gives 
some  interesting    nesting    variations  in  his  posthumous 
chapter  on  "  Instinct,"  and  they  are  examples  of  what 
Romanes    calls    "  plasticity   of   instinct."      I    prefer    to 
call  them  examples  of  intelligence   by  which  hereditary 
instincts    are    not  only  modified,  but   discarded  by  the 
associations  and  circumstances    of  the   individuals   of  a 
species. 

Thus  impoverished  by  the  departure  of  the  birds, 
we  listen  for  the  first  songs  of  our  resident  birds 
with  an  intentness  sharper  than  in  the  country,  and 
when  we  hear  them,  familiar  songs  from  familiar 
birds,  it  is  with  a  satisfaction  not  achieved  by 
countryfolk  with  their  nightingales,  just  as  light  seen 
through  a  chink  may  set  the  emotions  vibrating  more 
than  the  whole  visible  day. 

Of  late  years,  I  personally  could  not  feel  in  accord 
with  the  throstle's  song,  which,  intermittent  with  us 
Londoners  in  a  mild  winter  (I  have  heard  it  all 
months  except  August),  breaks  into  its  full  volume  of 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  119 

sound  by  March.  Somehow  the  very  innocence  of  the 
throstle's  song,  his  brilliant,  varied,  luxuriant  declara- 
tion of  care-free  gladness,  lack  meditation  and  tender- 
ness. We  are  now  so  burdened  with  memory,  so 
appalled  by  the  misery  of  our  own  world,  that  this 
hey-nonny  of  a  "  too  happy "  bird  is  as  remote  from 
us  as  the  equivalent  Elizabethan  madrigal.  A  sorrow 
to  match  and  express  our  own  we  shall  not  find  in 
nature,  but  the  throstle's  very  exuberance  of  joy 
seems  to  mock  and  reproach  us. 

It  is  otherwise  with  the  blackbird,  whom  I  first 
heard  on  February  22nd  (1919)  at  seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  in  1921,  actually  on  January  26th.  I 
remember  reading  somewhere  an  observation  that  the 
blackbird's  flute  is  less  a  song  than  "a  refined  and 
spiritualized  soliloquy."  The  writer  never  said  a  truer 
thing,  for  those  calm  and  leisurely  intonations  are  not 
those  of  song,  but  of  talk,  and  the  very  imperfections 
and  breakings  down  seem  like  the  prosiest  portions 
of  the  narrative,  the  plea,  the  description,  the  dramatic 
monologue,  whichever  it  be.  The  speaker,  for  all  his 
eloquence,  is  not  a  trained  rhetorician.  It  is  as  if  his 
tidings  were  of  things  of  too  fair  a  report  for  the 
vehicle  of  sound  to  convey  ;  his  technique  is  not  ade- 
quate to  them,  and  his  appreciation  of  these  marvels 
make  him  fragmentary,  incoherent  in  his  effort  to  express 
them. 

I  think  the  reason  why  this  music  moves  us  even 
more  than  its  beauty  warrants  is  twofold.  In  the 
first  place,  the  break  with  winter  is  not  too  abrupt. 
Unlike  those  of  July  and  August,  avian  voices  are 
never  silent  in  winter.  The  pied  wagtail  along  the 
river  utters  his  bright,  sibilant  double  note  as  he 
hurls  himself  through  the  air ;  the  meadow  pipits 
ring  their  fugitive  elfin  bells ;  the  robin's  thin  silver 
spears  of  melody  pierce  the  mirk ;  the  tits  clatter 
among  the  tree-tops,  and  seem,  like  Dr.  Johnson,  to 
be  always  drinking  tea,  so  like  are  their  vivacious 
notes  to  the  rattling  of  cups  and  spoons  ;  the  tawny 
owls  cry  like  the  night  wind  in  the  rigging  and  down 
the  chimney ;  gulls  and  lapwings  are  the  bagpipes 


120      BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

of  storm ;  the  larks  in  flocks  on  the  allotments  utter 
their  strident,  grating  alarm  cry ;  the  starlings  are 
a  Parliament  of  Foules,  composed  wholly  of  their 
own  party ;  the  wren  gives  us  his  sweet,  running, 
precise  phrase — and  so  on.  Everywhere  the  winter 
hums  with  talk,  friends'  talk  and  business  talk  both, 
and  all  at  once  the  blackbird  chimes  in  with  the  tran- 
sition from  the  workaday  world  to  the  ideal  one. 
Secondly,  the  blackbird's  rich  contralto  has  a  reflec- 
tive and  even  melancholy-seeming  cast  more  in  touch 
with  human  emotion  to-day  than  the  throstle's  effer- 
vescence. As  I  lay  and  listened  to  him  it  seemed 
impossible  that  I  should  soon  get  up,  eat  porridge  and 
read  of  the  villanies  men  do  to  one  another. 

Within  two  yards  of  me  in  the  garden  I  have  the 
robin  singing  "inwardly,"  as  Gilbert  White  would 
say.  This  subdued  and  delicate  warbling  is  quite 
different  from  the  usual  song,  or  the  let  let  of  indigna- 
tion, or  the  sobbing  gasp  uttered  when  the  nest  is 
approached.  It  is  so  faint  as  to  be  unheard  ten 
yards  away,  and  rather  like  a  series  of  vocal  sighs 
crept  into  melody — airy  bubbles  of  sound,  a  song  in 
music  what  pearl  is  in  colour — how  can  one  describe 
it  ?  The  great  tit's  spring  song  I  first  heard  on 
January  28th,  in  1919,  and  the  blue-tit's  as  early  as 
December  1920.  The  former  is  a  high  and  low  note, 
loudly  and  rapidly  repeated,  sometimes  twenty  times, 
somewhat  metallic,  and  uttered  with  a  jovial,  conse- 
quential air  admirably  suited  to  so  virile  a  character. 
Blue-tit's  welcome  to  the  season  is  only  a  single  note, 
likewise  volleyed  out  in  quicker  sequence  still,  and 
with  a  prelude  of  three  notes,  with  longer  intervals 
between  them,  but  it  is  much  purer  and  sweeter  in 
quality  than  the  oxeye's  song.  By  April  the  dunnock 
is  singing  all  day  long,  and  will  so  continue  for 
months.  In  the  wonderfully  mild  winter  of  1919-20, 
indeed,  he  sang  regularly  from  October  to  March. 
A  sentiment  clings  to  this  temperately  gay  song, 
which  finds  its  way  even  into  books  of  the  ornithologists 
of  the  collecting  sort,  as  they  industriously  cart  into 
them  their  rubble  of  tedious  facts  compiled  at  the  expense 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  121 

of  io  many  lives,  vastly  more  poetic  than  theirs.  The 
lark's  song  I  first  heard  out  of  a  yellow  fog  on 
February  9,  1919,  and  in  1920  as  early  as  the  16th 
of  a  very  mild  January,  gushing  down  upon  the 
earth  "  where  men  sit  and  hear  each  other  groan " 
in  a  shover  of  golden  rain,  rustling  down  and  splash- 
ing where  the  guttural  notes  sounded  above  the  more 
liquid  ones. 

The  lark's  felicity  is  not  earthy  like  the  throstle's, 
and  its  exultation  is  purely  of  the  care-free  heavens. 
Our  own  mounting  hopes  and  escaping  thoughts  seem 
to  climb  that  invisible  staircase  of  sound  and  motion 
up  which  the  lark  ascends  and  from  which  his  music 
descends.  For  neither  song  nor  bird  seem  of  this 
world.  Yet  our  conception  of  angels  is  that  of  inane 
debutantes  in  nightgowns,  with  wings  growing  out  of 
two  slits  in  them,  borrowed  from  the  "  lower  animals  " 
who  are  not  admitted  to  the  joys  of  supramundane 
existence. 

It  is  usually  said  that  larks  stop  singing  in  mid- 
air, and  drop  like  a  stone.  But  they  by  no  means 
invariably  descend  in  this  manner,  and  I  have  often 
watched  them  in  this  neighbourhood  come  sliding 
down  in  a  long  curve,  singing  and  vibrating  their 
expanded  wings  until  within  a  few  inches  of  the 
ground,  when  they  hovered  for  a  moment,  and  only 
ceased  singing  when  their  feet  actually  touched  the 
ground.  The  season  of  larks  singing  in  numbers  only 
lasts  with  us  between  the  first  impulse  to  song  and 
nesting  time  in  the  first  week  of  April.  I  have 
noticed  that  larks,  like  other  singing-birds,  differ  from 
individual  to  individual  in  the  quality  of  the  song. 

The  chaffinches,  whose  numbers  accumulate  to  many 
more  than  a  hundred,  disappear  from  us  before  their 
marital  music  begins,  though  in  the  variable  winter 
of  1919-20  they  began  singing  as  early  as  February 
24th,  without,  however,  the  dash  and  audacity  of 
spring.  Thereafter,  I  am  at  a  loose  end  for  birds, 
except  for  the  courting  displays  of  the  crows,  chasing 
one  another  from  one  chimney-pot  to  another,  and 
the  music  of  the  owls  which  I  hear  every  night  as 


122       BIRDS   OF   THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

I  sit  in  my  study  reviewing  minor  verse.  The  pied 
wagtails  depart  for  the  nesting  season  and  return  again 
after  it,  so  that  it  is  rare  to  hear  their  spring  warble 
delivered  like  that  of  pipits  and  wheatears,  while 
hovering  some  feet  from  the  ground.  But  it  is  not 
true  to  say  that  they  do  not  sing  in  the  winter,  for 
I  sometimes  used  to  hear  their  cheerful,  hurried  and 
charming  song,  in  the  same  notation  as  dunnock's 
and  swallow's,  and  uttered  not  in  the  air  but  on  the 
ground.  I  have  never  heard  the  mistle-thrush  sing 
in  the  winter,  here  or  elsewhere,  and  it  is  my  belief 
that  he  is,  like  the  blackbird,  invariably  a  harbinger 
of  spring,  the  loud,  ardent,  assured  and  assertive 
messenger  of  the  first  dawn,  the  early  streaks — like 
the  daffodil. 

Except  for  swallows,  martins  and  swifts,  we  see  and 
hear  practically  nothing  of  the  migrants,  though  willow- 
wren  and  chiff-chaff  sometimes  spend  a  few  days  in  the 
orchard  before  passing  on,  and  cuckoos  now  and  again 
fly  over  the  houses  and  fields. 

There  are,  however,  exceptions.  In  June  1920  a 
pair  of  yellow  wagtails  nested  in  some  waste  land, 
tangled  with  oxeye  daisies,  parsley  and  mayweed, 
between  Snipe  Field  and  Wheatear  Field.  Whenever 
I  approached  the  nest  (once  found,  I  kept  some 
distance  away  from  it,  for  fear  of  attracting  attention 
to  it)  the  birds  would  fly  round  my  head  in  broad 
sweeps,  uttering  their  bright  alarm  cry — tihee,  tihee — 
trying  to  entice  me  away  by  manoeuvring  in  the 
direction  where  I  knew  the  nest  was  not.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  get  near  these  shapely  and  brilliantly 
plumaged  birds,  and  they  perch  indiscriminately  on 
the  ground,  wagtail-fashion,  on  the  tops  of  small 
plants,  chat-fashion,  and  on  small  trees  and  tall 
bushes,  finch-fashion,  keeping  their  lustrous  bodies 
well  out  into  the  day.  The  voice  is  nearer  to  the 
grey  than  the  pied  wagtail's,  and  the  flight  is  all 
curves  and  undulations.  This  symmetry  of  flowing 
lines  is  deeply  satisfying  to  the  human  eye.  Nature 
is  a  world  of  curves,  as  a  great  biologist  says,  and 
we  were  brought  up  racially  on  them.  Early  in  May 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  123 

of  the  same  year  I  saw  a  lesser  whitethroat  in  the 
orchard.  I  was  standing  quite  still  under  an  apple- 
tree,  and  the  little  bird  flew  on  to  a  branch  three 
yards  above  my  head,  and  immediately  plunged  into 
frantic  song — sipper,  sipper,  sipper,  sipper — two  notes 
rapidly  repeated  like  a  row  of  exclamation  marks. 
So  near  to  the  bird,  I  could  tell  that  it  was  a  trifle 
smaller  bird  than  the  common  whitethroat,  and  more 
reddish  brown  on  the  upper  parts.  As  Mr.  Coward 
points  out,  the  surest  way  of  distinguishing  between 
greater  and  lesser  whitethroat  are  the  much  darker 
ear-coverts  of  the  latter.  But  you  must  get  a  better 
than  a  bird's-eye  view  of  him  to  tell  them  apart. 

The  willow-wren  slips  through  the  gardens  as  well, 
and  I  have  had  him  back  in  mine,  on  August  10th, 
singing  the  ghost  of  his  spring  lyric  in  the  middle 
of  the  day.  By  the  middle  of  August  greenfinches 
and  chaffinches  begin  to  drift  back  to  their  autumn 
and  winter  haunts,  and  the  swallows  and  martins 
(whose  final  doom  conies  perceptibly  nearer  year  by 
year)  are  educating  their  families.  On  the  same  day 
that  the  willow-wren  appeared  in  the  garden  there 
was  a  great  congregation  of  swallows,  and  I  counted 
one  hundred  and  fifty-three  perched  on  the  telegraph- 
wires  within  ten  yards  of  the  house,  while  fifty  others 
swarmed  like  bees  about  it.  Then  suddenly  they  were 
all  gone,  and  ten  minutes  later  the  normal  number 
were  hawking  the  skies.  It  was  exactly  like  a  rehearsal 
for  migration,  and  may  indeed  have  been  something  of 
the  kind.  Several  of  the  martins  built  nests  in  the  gables 
of  the  houses  of  my  road,  though  not,  alas !  in  mine, 
and  one  very  late  brood  was,  I  have  strong  reason  to 
believe,  deserted. 

It  is  interesting  to  watch  martins  house-hunting  in 
a  road  (my  road)  where  they  have  built  in  previous 
years.  A  pair  of  them  will  inspect  one  house  after 
another,  swooping  up  under  the  gables,  fluttering  before 
them,  and  then  passing  on,  unable  as  yet  to  make  up 
their  minds.  Once  the  site  is  chosen,  the  tenants  will 
stand  no  nonsense  from  other  pairs  on  their  search. 
In  August,  the  martins  begin  to  flock  the  skies  about 


124       BIRDS    OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  fluttering  and  wheeling 
like  pipistrelles.  There  is  a  quite  steep  cloud  of  them, 
and  when  they  have  exhausted  one  space,  they  occupy 
the  next,  slipping  further  and  further  away  with  fainter 
and  fainter  cries.  These  evening  flights,  however,  are 
undertaken  for  more  than  daily  bread.  They  are  partly 
for  exercise  and  play,  partly  for  educating  the  young 
birds,  and  are  partly  a  noviciate  in  sociability  and  before 
departure  overseas.  For  migration  represents  biologic- 
ally a  radical  change  in  the  rhythm  of  bird-life,  and 
needs  almost  as  much  preliminary  training  as  a  boxing 
match. 

IV 

I  will  end  this  account  of  the  birds  of  my  district 
by  one  of  those  in  my  garden — the  ordinary  suburban 
affair,  some  twenty-five  yards  long  by  eight  broad, 
and  with  no  trees  in  it  above  a  small  plum  and  apple 
and  a  sapling  mountain-ash.  For  this  garden,  like 
Sergius,  I  never  apologize,  for,  thanks  to  the  good 
cheer  and  accommodation  I  provide,  it  is  a  winter 
almshouse  for  eleven  regular,  (not  counting  rare  visits 
by  other  species)  different  and  needy  species — sparrow, 
robin,  chaffinch,  dunnock,  blackbird,  starling,  blue-tit, 
oxeye,  wren,  throstle  and  mistle-thrush — a  good  tally 
for  a  London  garden. 

I  have  learned  a  few  things  by  watching  these 
birds  which  no  books  have  told  me.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  mythical  that  sparrows  drive  away  the 
more  delicate  species.1  On  the  contrary,  they  en- 
courage them,  since  the  sparrow,  however  parasitic  on 
man,  is  perhaps  the  most  incorrigibly  wild  of  all  our 
native  birds,  and  if  he  relax  his  cautionary  tension 
in  a  garden,  other  birds  give  a  sigh  of  relief  and  throw 
their  anxieties  to  the  winds.  The  sparrow's  attitude 
is  a  perfect  barometer  of  safety,  and  I  have  never 
known  him  interfere  with  the  others,  in  spite  of  his 
large  numerical  superiority.  Mr.  Hudson  gives  a 
desolating  account  of  the  Tower  sparrows  and  their 

1  Their  appropriation  of  the  nests  of  martins  is  of  course 
different. 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  125 

hooliganism,  but  maybe  they  are  tinged  with  the 
associations  of  the  place.  The  remarkable  thing  about 
my  sparrows  is  their  capacity  to  learn,  the  cause  above 
all  others  of  their  prosperity.  Conceited,  aggressive 
people  learn  nothing ;  knowledge  comes  from  patient 
experiment,  humility,  watchfulness  and  readiness  to 
seize  the  occasion  when  it  offers.  My  sparrows  are 
not  Pelmanites  or  profiteers,  though  this  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  labour  of  others  is  Jew-like.  But  the  bad  Jew 
(who  is  generally  behind  the  luxury  trades — brothels, 
fashion,  cinemas,  etc.)  preys  upon  the  vices  and  frivolities 
of  men ;  the  sparrow  lives  on  the  specializations  of 
others  and  does  the  work,  which  is  quite  unlike  the  para- 
sitic money-getting  of,  say,  the  fur-trader.  Not  only 
do  they  keep  in  the  background,  alert,  judicious, 
capable  and  unobtrusive,  but  I  have  never  known 
them  to  take  the  initiative  in  anything.  They  wait 
and  watch  what  others  do,  and  then  if  it  seems  good 
to  them,  and  being  quite  catholic  in  taste  and  without 
prejudice,  they  go  and  do  likewise.  Thus  it  was  the 
blue-tit,  robin  and  starling  who  showed  them  the  way 
to  feed  from  the  bird-table — sometimes,  as  I  have 
seen,  driving  their  pupils  off  it ;  blue-tit  and  oxeye 
to  perch  upon  the  portholes  of  my  hanging  box, 
thrust  in  their  heads  and  extract  the  oatmeal  from 
within ;  the  thrush  who  instructed  them  in  the  joys 
of  the  same  food  on  the  ground ;  and  blue-tit  and 
oxeye,  again,  how  to  grasp  the  rind  of  a  cocoanut 
with  their  feet  and  hammer  down  (as  now  they  do 
regularly)  upon  the  succulence  within.  They  are  the 
least  professional  and  specialized  and  the  most  elastic- 
minded  of  the  whole  passerine  order,  and  their 
ability  to  profit  by  the  specializations  of  others  is  un- 
measured. All  these  experiments  are  conducted  in  un- 
businesslike, shoddy,  hoydenish  fashion,  for  the  sparrow, 
being  a  jack-of-all-trades,  possesses  no  technique  to 
any  of  them.  He  is  the  casual  labourer  of  the 
race  of  birds,  and  it  is  to  his  capacity  for  doing 
any  mortal  thing  in  a  second-rate  way,  to  his 
acutely  intelligent  observation  of  the  habits  of  others 
and  decisiveness  in  acting  upon  what  he  has  assimi- 


126      BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

lated,  that  I  attribute  the  wonderful  hold  of  his  tribe 
upon  life — rather  than  to  the  mechanical  factor  of 
prolificacy. 

Indeed,  as  I  study  the  birds  in  my  garden,  I  fall 
more  in  wonder  of  the  infinite  variety  of  nature, 
psychological  variety  not  only  of  species,  but  (as 
I  hope  to  show  later)  of  individuals  of  the  same 
species.  How  uncommercial-minded  the  individualist 
robin  is,  for  instance  !  That  spruce  form,  that 
gallant  and  fiery  spirit  hardly  gets  a  tenth  of 
what  blackbird,  thrush,  tit  and  dunnock  do  in  the 
same  time.  He  is  looking  out  challengingly  for  a 
rival  all  the  time,  and  is  as  far  removed  from  scramb- 
ling, happy-go-lucky,  child-like  starling,  contented 
dunnock,  vulgar  sparrow,  cheerful,  industrious  kitty- 
wren,  and  insatiably  curious,  active,  elfin  tit  as 
the  sparrow  is  from  his  fellow-finch,  the  linnet.  I 
have  had  as  many  as  three  male  robins  in  the  garden 
at  the  same  time,  and  though  they  do  not  often  come 
to  blows,  their  exclusive  tempers  will  never  suffer  one 
another's  presence.  The  usual  procedure  is  a  singing 
contest.  One  will  perch  on  the  fence,  the  other  on 
the  plum-tree  at  the  other  end  of  the  garden,  and 
then  each  will  hurl  bright,  furious  spears  of  sound  at 
the  other,  one  bird  always  attending  with  concen- 
trated jealousy  upon  his  rival's  musical  charges 
until  the  end,  when  he  takes  up  the  burden.  So  the 
lyric  duel  continues,  until  they  have  worked  themselves 
up  into  a  mood  for  arms,  and  one  of  them,  whose 
conviction  of  rightful  possession  is  stronger  than  the 
other's,  quits  his  perch  and  advances  upon  the  other, 
his  red  breast  puffed  out  like  an  ensign  of  battle. 
I  find  that  the  intruder  usually  gives  way  and  flees, 
pursued  over  bush,  over  fence  by  the  bird  whose 
saeva  indignatio  has  flamed  as  red  as  his  breast. 
But  occasionally  the  battle  is  joined,  and  a  Homeric 
business  it  is,  though  never  in  my  experience  with 
fatal  results.  Still,  there  is  no  doubt  that  robins  do 
very  occasionally  fight  to  the  death,  being  in  that 
respect  unique  (except  for  the  raven)  among  British 
birds. 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  127 

Thrushes  and  blackbirds  interrupt  their  feeding  by 
their  wooing,  and  I  have  seen  my  golden-daggered 
cock-blackbird  chase  his  mate  away  from  the  garden, 
she  alighting  on  the  fence,  and  he  within  a  foot  of 
her,  to  swing  up  his  tail  in  that  slow,  large 
gesture  like  a  fine  line  of  blank  verse,  and  thus 
pursue  her  from  fence  to  fence  out  of  sight.  It  may 
indeed  be  all  dalliance,  but  there  is  no  mistaking  the 
reluctance  of  his  sooty  brown  mate.  The  hen  black- 
bird has  just  that  undeveloped,  indeterminate  vesture 
which  fits  the  dusky  raw  material  of  bird-life  in  the 
Cretaceous  period.  It  is  this  kind  of  thing  that  makes 
me  feel  the  wonder  of  evolution — that  the  golden 
oriole,  both  material  and  symbolic,  is  of  the  same 
tribe  as  the  hen  blackbird.  As  colour  is  developed 
from  drab,  so  mind  out  of  vague  desires  and  gropings. 

Birds  need  water  in  the  winter  as  much  as  they 
need  food,  and  I  made  a  bath  for  them  out  of  the 
lid  of  the  dustbin.  The  starlings  who  came  to  the 
garden  in  daily  troops  of  twenties  and  thirties  are 
adepts  in  it,  gamboling  in  it,  showering  and  disporting 
tnemselves  sometimes  six  at  a  time  and  sending  the  water 
flying  in  all  directions.  The  thrush  is  more  demure,  but 
as  he  improves  he  must  be  anxious  to  learn  the  abandon 
of  the  starlings.  The  blackbird  I  have  never  seen 
dare  the  main,  but  tomtit  and  oxeye  plunge  starling- 
wise  and  caper  about  like  children  in  the  sea.  The 
sparrows  are  learning  by  degrees. 

Wren  and  mistle-thrush  are  rarer  visitors,  and  when 
the  latter  does  put  in  a  very  welcome  appearance,  it 
is  at  twilight  when  the  other  birds  have  departed,  to 
indulge  in  a  hearty  and  solitary  bathe.  It  is  remark- 
able to  see  the  wren  at  all  in  this  hedgeless  district, 
but  he  does  look  me  up  now  and  again,  and  though 
he  will  touch  nothing  of  my  varied  fare,  has  come 
within  a  couple  of  feet  of  my  window,  and  sometimes 
bathes,  beating  the  water  with  his  wings.  I  have  had 
as  many  as  half  a  dozen  blue-tits  and  four  oxeyes  in 
it  at  one  and  the  same  time.  Nothing  comes  amiss 
to  tomtit,  and  he  will  stand  on  the  table  sampling 
one  dish  after  another,  to  retire  at  last  grasping  a 


128       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

grain  of  oatmeal  to  a  twig  of  the  plum-tree,  there  to 
clutch  it  in  his  claw  and  tear  it  to  pieces  with  his 
bill  like  a  hawk.  Meanwhile  shuffle-wing  comes  upon 
the  stage  and  makes  a  few  shy  pecks.  But  tomtit 
reappears,  and  shuffle-wing  at  once  gives  place  to  him, 
waiting  in  patience  until  the  Blue  Boy  has  finished  his 
inspection. 

On  a  bitter  day  early  in  February  1918  oxeye 
astonished  me  by  a  nuptial  dance  on  the  fence,  droop- 
ing his  wings,  curling  out  and  stiffening  his  feathers, 
stretching  his  head  out  low  (as  a  cow  does  to  smell 
the  earth)  and  tramping  down  upon  the  wood  in  a 
kind  of  prancing  capriole  delightful  to  the  appraising 
taste  of  his  lady  sitting  by.  It  is  with  birds  in 
love  with  their  mates  as  with  artists  in  love  with 
the  world — they  obey  the  law  of  making  the  most 
and  best  of  their  material.  The  speed  with  which 
these  tits  feed,  their  sudden  pauses  to  look  up, 
round  and  ahead,  the  precision,  energy,  brilliance  and 
facility  of  their  movements,  the  volatile  change  from 
flight  to  bodily  motion  and  again  to  flight  all  in  one 
unresting  wave,  like  a  seventeenth-century  "  heroic 
pastoral,"  without  end-stops  or  Ralph  Hodgson's 
Eve,  bring  it  home  to  one  at  what  high  pressure 
they  live. 

In  the  late  summer  and  early  autumn  a  few  young 
birds  drift  through  the  gardens  on  their  way  to  the 
sea.  I  had  never  seen  fly-catchers  in  London,  until 
one  morning  in  July  two  young  birds  alighted  on  my 
windowsill  and  there  remained  for  ten  minutes,  lifting 
beaks  to  the  rain,  as  though  it  were  larval  or  aphidian 
manna  dropped  from  the  Celestial  Bird-Mother.  Their 
mother  in  the  flesh  found  them  at  length,  and,  scolding 
them  for  thus  exposing  themselves,  took  them  off  with 
her.  A  willow- wren  with  three  young 1  remained  for 
a  whole  day  in  early  August,  and  these  casual  visits 

1  Young  willow- wrens  are  brighter  than  the  parent  birds,  which 
is  an  exception  to  the  general  rule  that  the  young  of  a  species 
approximate  to  the  ancestral  form.  The  breasts  of  young  robins 
are  spotted,  one  sign  of  relationship  between  the  robin  branch 
of  the  warblers  and  the  thrushes. 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  129 

made  me  wonder  whether  family  parties  of  migratory 
birds  do  not  often  travel  more  or  less  on  the  route 
of  migration,  and  so  gradually  converge  in  some 
numbers.  A  hen  robin  with  three  young  was  another 
visitor  remaining  for  two  days.  She  used  to  sit  and 
sing  to  her  young  or  croon  to  them  in  a  murmurous 
undertone  only  audible  at  about  ten  feet  away,  and 
quite  different  from  the  male's  song,  or  rather  songs. 
Do  the  hen-birds  of  other  species  thus  musically 
whisper  to  their  young  ?  In  the  mating  season  it  is 
natural  that  the  hen-bird,  the  more  passive  and 
conservative  in  character  (anabolic)  and  reluctant  in 
passion,  should  be  nearly  always  songless.  But  the 
maternal  passion  is  as  powerful  as  the  sexual  passion 
of  the  katabolic  male.  If  hen-birds  can  or  do  sing, 
that  is  to  say,  it  would  be  in  the  intervals  of  con- 
ducting the  young  and  at  a  time  when  they  are  able 
more  or  less  to  fend  for  their  own  living.  Lastly, 
a  pair  of  whitethroats  (adults)  haunted  the  garden  for 
three  days  at  the  beginning  of  one  September,  pur- 
suing their  daily  round  with  a  composure  divertingly 
unlike  their  usual  spirits.  So  conspicuously  is  the 
metabolism  of  birds  effected  by  the  changing  acts  in 
the  theatre  of  the  seasons. 

Two  pairs  of  blue-tits  nested  in  my  garden  in 
1920,1  and  numerous  as  are  the  observations  of  these 
drolls  en  famille,  I  cannot  refrain  from  trying  to 
communicate  portions  of  the  charm  of  my  own  ex- 
perience. Both  pairs  were  on  the  best  of  terms 
with  their  landlord,  and,  when  the  young  were  hatched, 
would  fly  to  and  fro  from  their  boxes  with  my  head 
leaned  against  them.  The  hen  is  a  close  sitter,  and 
her  spouse  exhausts  every  argument  to  persuade  her 
into  the  sunlight.  But  she  (the  singular  must  do  for 
the  plural)  was  not  often  to  be  blandished  from  her 
little  white  eggs,  starred  with  chestnut,  so  that  he 
would  either  fly  in  or  his  vociferations  became  so 
importunate  that  out  she  would  fly  and  off  they 

1  Not  to  mention  a  pair  of  robins,  who  had  filled  an  old 
kettle  with  nesting  material  by  the  third  week  in  tropical 
February  1921. 

9 


130       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

would  go  together.  Occasionally  a  tramp  would  appear 
on  the  scene — a  sparrow  perching  on  the  top  of  the 
box — and  instantly  she  flies  out  at  him  and  sends 
him  packing  right  out  of  the  garden.  Once  an  oxeye 
called  at  the  box  with  a  view  to  tenancy  while  the 
rightful  owners  were  at  the  other  end  of  the  garden. 
The  air  became  electric :  the  hen  flew  straight  into 
the  box,  and  the  cock  fell  upon  the  oxeye,  who  put 
up  a  semblance  of  resistance  for  a  few  seconds  and 
then  took  to  his  heels.  But  I  never  witnessed  the 
smallest  unfriendliness  between  the  two  pairs  nesting 
in  the  same  garden  within  a  dozen  yards  of  each 
other.  Yet  if  Mr.  Eliot  Howard's  fantastic  theory 
(as  I  cannot  but  call  it)  in  Territory  in  Bird  Life 
were  true,  these  pairs  should  have  been  in  constant 
and  severe  combat  through  trespassing.  The  most 
patient  of  observers,  the  ablest  of  men,  fall  into 
perversities  as  soon  as  they  treat  animals  as  automata, 
as  pawns  of  complex  biological  reaction  and  peremp- 
tory inheritance.  He  approaches  birds,  that  is  to  say, 
as  an  engineer  would  approach  horses,  and  to  treat  the 
whole  psychological  problem  of  bird-sex  as  a  congenital 
obligation  for  the  effective  discharge  of  the  process 
of  reproduction  is  the  same  as  treating  horses  in 
terms  of  motor-cars.  There  is  a  lot  in  the  territorial 
theory,  and  the  selection  of  individual  sites  for  breeding 
purposes  does  play  a  large  part  in  the  biological  change 
from  the  Socialism  of  winter  to  the  Individualism  of 
spring.  But  Mr.  Howard  intensely  cultivates  this  part 
to  the  detriment  of  the  whole,  a  not  infrequent  lapse 
of  the  expert.  He  thrashes  his  theory  until  it  drops 
with  exhaustion.  And  all  because  he  regards  birds 
as  dominoes  on  a  biological  draught-board,  instead  of 
intelligent  living  creatures. 

Sometimes  the  hen  would  go  no  further  than  the 
plum-tree,  and  the  cock  would  pop  a  larval  gooseberry 
moth  into  her  mouth,  and  she,  accepting  it  with  a 
kind  of  demure  grace,  sprang  back  into  her  nest. 
In  such  fondness  and  service  they  passed  their 
crowded  days. 

The   cock  was  full  of    marital    solicitude.     One    day 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  131 

the  pair  of  them  had  gone  off  together,  and  he 
returned  without  her  with  a  caterpillar.  He  sum- 
moned her  to  come  to  table — tee-tee-er,  tee-tec-er — but 
she  responded  not,  and  he  dropped  in  to  look  for 
her,  and  came  out  two  minutes  later  visibly  dis- 
concerted, called  loudly,  planted  his  head  in  the 
entrance  hole  and  shouted  again.  But  she  came 
not,  and  so,  swallowing  his  caterpillar  like  a  sen- 
sible bird,  he  rushed  off  at  full  speed,  crying  out 
to  her  in  obvious  concern.  The  way  in  which  their 
lives  worked  in  fitness  both  to  physical  necessity  and 
emotional  beauty  was  very  seductive.  When  the 
male  was  long  absent,  she  used  sometimes  to  put 
her  head  out  of  the  window,  peering  here  and  there, 
and  then  disappear  into  her  nest.  This  she  would 
repeat,  if  he  still  failed  to  put  in  an  appearance. 
The  food  was  exclusively  caterpillar  or  aphides,  and 
both  birds  refused  to  touch  oatmeal,  of  which  they 
are  very  fond  in  autumn  and  winter. 

When  the  young  were  hatched,  the  labour  of  these 
small  birds  to  feed  them  became  heroic,  and  they 
both  grew  visibly  thinner. 

Work  apace,  apace,  apace,  apace,  apace, 
Honest  labour  wears  a  lovely  face. 

I  could  never  understand  how  the  young  became  aware 
of  one  of  their  parents'  visits  before  he  or  she  went 
into  the  nest.  But  they  invariably  began  clamouring 
in  muffled,  silvery  chorus  as  soon  as  he  or  she 
alighted,  whether  on  top  of  the  box  or  on  a  twig 
within  a  foot  of  it — as  they  often  did  for  an  inspec- 
tion. Could  they  have  heard  the  foot  alighting  or 
the  wings  beating  ?  Young  birds  are  highly  educable, 
and  are  not  born  with  too  burdensome  a  luggage  of 
inherited  adaptations — the  most  wonderful  of  them 
all,  the  egg-tooth,  an  adaptation  from  reptilian  an- 
cestry, being  an  elaborated  tool  for  one  stroke  and 
then  lost — but  this  superacute  sense  of  hearing  is  one 
that  might  very  well  be  an  over-specialization  and 
hence  a  danger  to  the  species.  For  if  an  enemy 


132       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

trod  near  the  nest,  the  clamour  of  the  young  birds 
from  hearing  the  footfall  would  betray  them. 

Though  the  process  was  not  systematic,  the  parents 
more  or  less  fed  the  young  in  shifts,  the  female  on 
the  whole  bearing  the  larger  share  in  a  total  sixteen- 
seventeen  hours'  day.  But  the  male,  while  actually 
doing  less  work,  accomplished  more  results  by  con- 
fining his  foraging  nearer  at  home  than  the  hen- 
bird.  This  was  a  suggestive  example  of  male  and 
female  differentiation.  The  female  is  more  conser- 
vative, stable  and  routine-bound  than  the  male ;  he 
plays  the  more  adventurous,  dynamic,  individual  part. 
Why,  then,  did  she  go  further  abroad  than  he 
did  ?  Presumably  because,  in  a  wilder  environ- 
ment, both  parents  go  further  abroad  for  food 
than  my  garden-space  represents.  But  in  gardens 
with  fruit  trees  and  herbaceous  borders,  there  are 
ample  supplies  close  at  beak.  The  male,  so  I  con- 
jecture, recognized  this  ;  the  female  was  more  obedient 
to  "  sub-conscious  memory." 

The  first  brood  seemed  to  assume  the  toga  without 
any  examinations,  for  though  they  were  in  the  nest 
one  evening,  they  were  gone  early  the  next  morning, 
and  I  saw  nothing  of  them  again  except  in  the 
middle  of  the  da}*,  which  they  spent  with  their  parents 
in  a  sycamore-tree  three  gardens  away,  toing  and 
froing  among  the  branches  and  drinking  large  draughts 
of  the  intoxicating  open  day.  The  other  family  was 
less  advanced,  and  one  morning  in  the  middle  of  June 
there  was  an  irruption  of  five  great  tits,  parent  and 
four  young,  taking  possession  of  a  new  playground. 
They  soon  discovered  that  curious  noises  (not  unlike 
their  own  a  fortnight  before)  were  rising  out  of  a  hole 
in  a  box,  and  they  all  went  pell-mell  over  to  it. 
They  perched  on  the  top  of  the  box,  while  their 
parent  sat  on  a  cross-piece  of  wood  a  yard  away, 
looking  indulgently  on ;  and  the  hen  blue -tit,  who 
happened  to  be  feeding  the  young,  poked  her  head 
out  to  see  what  was  going  on  and  then  flew  away. 
One  of  the  oxeyes  then  grew  so  inquisitive  that  he 
perched  on  a  rose  spray  outside  the  box.  Just  then 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  133 

the  hen  blue-tit  returned  with  a  caterpillar  which  she 
popped  into  the  mouth  of  the  young  oxeye  and  then 
perched  hard  by,  wiping  her  beak  and  preening  her 
feathers.  Meanwhile  the  young  oxeye,  devoured  with 
curiosity,  perched  on  the  edge  of  the  hole  and  peered 
inside,  its  brethren  fluttering  and  shouting  with  excite- 
ment about  him.  This  was  the  grouping — three  young 
oxeyes  clambering  about  the  nesting-box,  one  perched 
at  the  edge  of  the  hole,  tilting  its  body  within  it  to 
investigate  what  lay  within,  and  the  adult  oxeye 
and  blue-tit  perched  unconcernedly  by  within  two 
yards  of  each  other.  It  was  precisely  as  though  one 
family  were  paying  a  friendly  visit  upon  another,  an 
agreeable  humdrum  affair  it  seemed  to  them,  but  what 
a  sensational  drama  for  me  !  It  will  no  doubt  appear 
that  this  account  is  altogether  too  anthropomorphic. 
I  am  relating  these  events  as  they  occurred,  giving 
them  a  sub-human  setting,  because  no  other  inter- 
pretation appears  to  me  to  fit  the  facts.  "  Awareness," 
says  Lloyd  Morgan,  "  is  ubiquitous  throughout  Nature, 
if  here  in  us  in  high  measure,  then  in  the  oak  and 
the  acorn,  in  the  molecule  and  the  atom,  in  their 
several  measures  and  degrees." 

But  what  intrigued  me  most  of  all  was  the  feeding 
of  the  young  great  tit  by  the  parent  blue  tit.  Have 
we  here  a  possible  explanation  of  the  solicitous 
behaviour  of  its  foster-parents  to  the  voracious,  ill- 
conditioned,  oafish  young  cuckoo  foisted  upon  them  ? 
Parental  care  was  an  experiment  perfected  by  natural 
selection  and  riveted  by  the  high  survival  utility  it 
conferred.  Its  importance  for  the  perpetuation  of  the 
species  cannot  be  exaggerated.  Now,  I  cannot  believe 
(as  some  observers  hold)  that  the  foster-parents  are 
unaware  that  the  cuckoo  is  no  relation  of  theirs. 
They  are  aware  enough  of  other  birds,  not  to  mention 
the  adult  cuckoo  which  they  constantly  and  rageingly 
pursue.  The  a-sentient  egg  they  do  not  know  for 
a  fraud,  but  that  the  young  cuckoo  is  not  (say) 
a  young  wagtail  they  know  perfectly  well.  But  the 
foster-parents  are  naturally  compelled  to  feed  the 
upstart  because  of  the  overmastering  power  and  urge 


134       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

of  parental  love,  for  it  is  absurd  to  call  so  fine  and 
ages-deep  a  passion,  to  which  they  are  willing  to 
sacrifice  their  lives,  by  a  more  timid  name.  And 
this  makes  the  instinctive  conduct  of  the  female 
cuckoo  the  most  repulsive  in  all  nature,  since  it 
exploits  a  noble  passion  to  the  destruction  of  its  own 
object.  This  criminal  subtlety  (analogous  to  that  of 
the  plume-hunter  who  takes  advantage  of  the  devotion 
of  birds  to  their  young  to  approach  and  kill  them  the 
more  easily)  probably  explains  why  its  victims  have 
not  yet  evolved  a  defensive  organization  against  it,  as 
they  have  against  birds  of  prey. 

When  I  opened  the  two  nesting-boxes,  I  found  four 
dead  nestlings  in  one  and  two  in  another,  none  of 
them  more  than  two  or  three  days  old.  This  is  quite 
usual  with  a  species  that  lays  so  many  eggs.  Thus 
spurts  the  flame  and  vanishes,  and  great  Nature  pays 
no  heed,  her  heart  and  brain  fixed  upon  the  roaring 
looms  of  life.  She  is  right,  and  the  dead  ask  of  her 
only  the  burial  of  the  dead. 

Many  people  will  think  that  the  activities  of  this 
confined  and  miniature  world  are  not  worth  com- 
memoration. But  from  this  same  little  community 
of  toers  and  froers  in  a  suburban  garden  I  received 
what  was  in  its  way  a  revelation.  On  November  28th 
I  saw  a  tomtit  come  into  the  garden,  fly  straight 
up  to  the  window  cocoa-nut  where  the  male  oxeye 
was  feeding  and  drive  him  off  it.  Oxeye  perched 
upon  the  bird-table ;  tomtit  dashed  at  him  and  packed 
him  off  to  the  apple-tree,  and  only  returned  to  the 
cocoa-nut  when  he  had  seen  his  larger  and  much 
more  powerful  cousin  to  the  end  of  the  garden.  1 
took  little  notice  of  this  incident  at  the  time,  until 
I  observed  that  it  was  repeated  dozens  of  times  with 
variations  right  on  through  the  winter.  Sometimes  it 
was  the  female  whom  this  minute,  feathered  bandit 
tried  to  expel.  But  she  generally  resented  it,  and 
spreading  her  wings  and  stretching  out  her  neck 
opposed  a  solid  defence  to  the  aggressor.  But  to  do 
so  she  had  to  leave  the  cocoa-nut  and  tomtit,  unable 
to  drive  her  away  by  circling  round  her,  would  fall 


BIRD-HAUNTED  LONDON  135 

upon  the  cocoa-nut  instead.  What  had  happened  was 
not  a  casual  but  a  regular  displacement  and  reversal 
of  power  between  these  two  particular  male  birds,  the 
discomfited  one  not  only  belonging  to  the  largest  and 
strongest  species  of  the  tit  family,  but  one  notorious 
for  its  boldness,  resolution  and  pugnacity. 

What  is  the  explanation  of  this  ?  Physical  dis- 
ability I  can  dismiss  at  once,  for  the  oxeye  was 
perfectly  healthy.  I  can  see  no  other  but  that  of  the 
individual  differences  between  birds  of  the  same 
species,  differences  as  great  upon  their  plane  as 
human  ones  upon  theirs.  This  particular  tomtit  was 
very  much  more  of  a  tomtit  than  this  particular 
oxeye  was  an  oxeye.  Birds,  in  fact,  are  variable 
individuals,  each  with  its  own  peculiar  composite  of 
character. 

But  this  is  only  a  negative  statement.  The  personal 
reality  of  the  living  universe  is  the  thing — "  personal 
agency,"  in  the  words  of  Professor  Pringle-Pattison, 
"  is  the  only  clue  to  the  mystery  of  existence  " — and 
the  emergence  and  development  of  personal  agency 
both  from  the  life  of  the  race  and  to  further  its  ends 
and  growth  ("  Everything  for  the  species ;  everything 
by  the  individual ;  nothing  for  the  individual,"  as 
Cresson  says)  is  one  of  the  greatest  products  of  the 
evolutionary  process. 

By  what  process,  again,  have  species  evolved  and 
perpetuated  themselves  in  all  their  differences  from 
primitive  forms  ?  By  luck,  mechanical  adaptation, 
brute  force  or  fertility  ?  These  are  a  very  dry  and 
poor  soil  for  the  flower  of  life  as  we  see  it  to  grow 
in.  No,  it  is  by  individual  effort,  resource,  character 
and  initiative,  profiting  by  the  variational  genius  of 
the  germ-plasm,  by  learning  how  to  live,  as  Genus 
Homo  learned  how  to  be  a  man,  by  no  other  way 
than  the  development  of  his  mind.  "  The  living 
organism,"  as  Professor  Thomson  says  in  The  Bible  of 
Nature,  "  is  characterized  by  the  power  of  effective 
response."  It  is  the  call  upon  life  which  comes  from 
without,  and  upon  the  response  of  the  living  creature 
to  the  summons  depends  the  history  of  evolution. 


136       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

"  I  cannot,"  writes  William  James,  "  but  consider  the  talk  of 
the  contemporary  sociological  school  about  averages  and  general 
laws  and  pre-determined  tendencies,  with  its  obligatory  under- 
rating of  the  importance  of  individual  differences  as  the  most 
pernicious  and  immoral  of  fatalisms.  It  is  almost  incredible 
that  men  who  are  themselves  working  philosophers  should 
pretend  that  any  philosophy  can  be,  or  ever  has  been,  constructed 
without  the  help  of  personal  preference  or  belief  or  divination." 

And  again  :  "  Not  an  energy  of  our  active  nature  to  which  it 
(the  personal  and  theistic  view  of  life)  does  not  authoritatively 
appeal,  not  an  emotion  of  which  it  does  not  normally  and  naturally 
release  the  springs.  At  a  single  stroke  it  changes  the  dead  blank 
it  of  the  world  into  a  living  thou  with  which  the  whole  man 
may  have  dealings." 

For  me  a  blue  and  a  great  tit  feeding  from  a  cocoa- 
nut  by  my  window  animated  the  universe  into  a 
living  thou. 


CHAPTER   VI 
A    DORSET    DIARY 

THE  country  I  am  writing  about  extends  in  a  rough 
semi-circle  some  few  miles  inland,  with  the  un- 
dulating road  (half  a  mile  behind  which  lies  the  sea, 
breaking  beneath  chalk  and  blue  lias  cliffs,  crowned 
with  sheep-walks  and  small  commons)  between  Bridport 
(Hardy's  Port  Bredy)  and  Lyme  Regis,  which  is  on  the 
Devonshire  border,  for  a  base.  There  is  nothing  spec- 
tacular in  the  country  at  all.  It  is  poorly  timbered, 
waterless  and  highly  cultivated  in  the  valley  pastures 
by  numerous  small  farms.  Ranges  of  hills,  here  and 
there  linked  to  form  a  miniature  turf  downland,  grow 
up  out  of  the  valleys  in  every  direction.  They  are  steep 
but  of  no  great  height,  and  many  of  them  of  odd 
rather  than  graceful  shapes.  Indeed,  the  only  "  features  " 
of  the  country  are  the  cottages  in  its  straggling  villages, 
built  of  Portland  stone,  with  masterpieces  of  thatch, 
and  the  unkempt  little  cider-orchards  which  are  the 
suburbs  of  every  village. 

Yet  I  grew  so  intimate  with  this  sober  but  cheerful 
land,  bare  and  lonely,  but  tenanted,  wild  but  homely, 
unambitious,  but  packed  with  character ;  I  came  to 
recognize  every  field,  wayside  tree  and  hedgerow  with 
such  increasing  love,  that  I  would  rather  lie  buried  in 
one  of  its  untidy  orchards  than  in  Westminster  Abbey. 
The  better  I  came  to  know  it,  the  less  I  troubled  about 
its  extrinsic  beauty  of  appearance,  any  more  than  a 
man  does  about  the  good  looks  of  an  old  friend.  I 
learned  it,  I  had  it  at  my  fingers'  ends  in  every  mood 
of  wet  and  fine,  but  I  could  no  more  express  nor  com- 
municate what  it  taught  me  than  I  could  endure  to  lose 
it.  Though  I  am  now  far  away  from  this  corner  of 
Dorset  in  time  and  place,  I  did  leave  something 

137 


138       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

inexplicable    behind    with    which    I    can    always   get    in 
touch,  whether  voluntarily  or  through  no  will  of  my  own. 

October  I6th  (1918). — A  distinguished  day.  I  saw  for 
the  first  time  here  a  wild  raven.  It  flew  low  over  my 
head  and  disappeared  over  the  edge  of  the  cliff, 
vigorously  mobbed  by  a  pair  of  rooks.  This  raven  exists 
in  legendary  account  among  the  numerous  small  villages 
inland  and  by  the  coast,  but  I  have  never  met  with 
anyone  who  saw  it  in  the  flesh.  Needless  to  say,  I  kept 
my  privilege  to  myself.  I  never  saw  this  splendid, 
traditional  bird  again,  and  indeed  I  can  scarce  credit 
the  fact  that  I  did  see  it.  So  far  as  I  know,  there  are 
no  near  breeding-places  of  the  raven  on  the  coast.  Per- 
haps I  had  been  walking,  not  from  the  village  to  the  sea, 
but  from  the  present  to  the  past,  from  the  extraordinary 
to  the  normal  in  bird-life,  to  a  time  when  ravens  grew 
like  blackberries  in  the  fields  of  the  air.  On  some 
stunted  bushes  within  a  hundred  yards  of  the  fishing 
village  I  came  upon  half  a  dozen  lesser  redpoles,  very 
passive  and  tame,  being,  I  suppose,  tired  out  after  their 
long  journey  from  the  North.  In  the  village  the  swallows 
were  congregated  on  the  telegraph  wires,  preparing  for 
migration,  and  among  them  was  an  albino,  all  over 
greyish  white. 

There  was  a  handsome  barn  along  the  road,  where  a 
pair  of  swallows  were  rearing  a  late  brood,  and  I  used 
to  spend  some  time  every  day  lying  on  the  hay 
watching  the  parent  birds  feed  their  young.  At  this 
time,  the  young  (four  in  number)  were  out  of  the  nest 
and  used  to  sit  transversely  across  an  oak  beam  a  foot 
below  the  rafters,  silent  and  statuesque  until  the  parents 
came  dashing  in  like  light  under  the  lintel  of  the  door, 
when  they  would  instantly  come  to  life,  fluttering  their 
wings,  jerking  their  bodies  over  the  edge  of  the  beam, 
and  mouths  all  agape,  whence  burst  a  storm  of  twittering. 
Now  I  am  quite  certain  of  my  facts.  The  parents  had 
two  chicks  each  under  charge,  and  invariably  fed  their 
own  pair,  hovering  before  them.1  They  not  only  fed 

1  One  cannot,  of  course,  distinguish  the  sexes  of  swallows, 
but  the  point  is  that  each  pair  of  chicks  was  in  the  charge  of  a 


A  DORSET  DIARY  139 

them  thus,  but  in  due  rotation,  beginning  with  the  out- 
side chick  and  going  back  to  it,  when  the  inner  one  had 
been  fed  in  its  turn.  Whether  this  fair  dealing  and 
regularity  be  followed  when  the  young  are  in  the  nest 
or  even  whether  it  be  the  common  practice  of  the 
swallow  tribe  I  do  not  know,  but  so  it  was  here, 
and  the  young,  though  all  demonstrating  at  the  same 
time,  never  jostled  one  another  or  scrambled  for  the  good 
things.  It  was  touch  and  go,  but  I  am  happy  to  say 
that  the  whole  family  got  away  in  time.  What  agony 
of  divided  spirit  must  the  parents  suffer  when  the  hot, 
personal  devotion  is  crossed  by  the  mysterious,  objective, 
tribal  impulse  of  migration,  crossed,  held  up,  beaten 
down  and  finally  swept  away,  and  mercifully  with  it  all 
pain  of  loss,  all  bitterness  of  regret  and  gnaw  of 
remembrance  ! 

October  17th. — Warde  Fowler  says  that  only  once 
in  all  his  years  of  observation  had  he  seen  the  grey 
wagtail  away  from  water.  Yet  to-day  I  watched  this 
little  Undine,  prancing  over  a  cottage-roof,  a  hundred 
yards  from  any  water,  and  that  but  a  muddy  ditch. 
Yellow-hammers  had  begun  to  flock  on  the  uplands. 

October  22nd. — Taking  a  short  stroll  at  dusk  in  the 
fields  I  heard  a  tremendous  uproar  from  the  hedges 
round.  It  was  the  blackbirds.  The  hedges  vibrated 
with  their  metallic  chirps,  so  that  one  wondered  whether 
some  terrible  catastrophe  was  threatening  the  blackbird 
world.  There  were  so  many  of  them  that  I  guessed 
they  were  migrants  from  the  north,  many  of  them  no 
doubt  to  cross  the  sea.  Simultaneously  the  owls  set 
up  their  nocturnes  ;  so  that  the  blackbirds  were  turning 
night  into  day  and  the  owls  day  into  night. 

October  23rd. — The  swallows  have  not  yet  gone,  for 
I  saw  a  score  of  them  circling  the  church-tower  of  the 
village.  The  migration  of  swallows  presents  an  inter- 
esting problem.1  The  question  is  this :  Do  swallows 

single  bird,  and  the  inference  that  the  father  fed  one  pair  and  the 
mother  the  other. 

1  By  the  exercise  of  what  mysterious  faculties  migrating  birds 
survive  at  all  is  a  sufficient  mystery.  Granted  that  young  birds 
find  their  way  by  inherited  memory,  how  can  a  sedentary  species 


140       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

migrate  at  the  approach  of  rough  weather  in  the  autumn 
independently  of  any  fixed  period  of  departure,  or  is 
it  scarcity  of  food  that  drives  them,  or  do  they  select 
a  more  or  less  calm  day  for  crossing  the  Channel  ?  The 
question  has  not  been  answered  by  observation,  because 
swallows  (like  other  species)  are  notoriously  irregular 
in  the  choice  of  a  time  for  leaving  our  shores.  Certainly 
they  linger  on  almost  into  November  in  the  south-west, 
when  the  conditions  are  kind.  But  do  they  wait  until 
the  weather  becomes  boisterous,  until,  that  is  to  say, 
their  chances  of  destruction  are  at  a  premium  ?  Cold 
should  do  them  little  harm,  but  storm  would  mow  down 
their  ranks  like  a  machine-gun.  Very  well,  then,  they 
do  not  thus  wait  upon  disaster,  or  they  would  not  have 
survived  and  flourished  to  their  present  prosperity. 
The  supplementary  losses  due  to  storm  over  and  above 
those  that  annually  befall  them  in  manifold  forms 
would  have  been  too  much  for  the  continuity  of  the 
race.  Probably  the  swallows  once  did  wait  thus,  but 
by  the  experience  of  catastrophe  they  contrived  to 
learn  a  gradual  good  sense,  calling,  it  would  seem, 
for  a  good  deal  of  sagacity  over  and  beyond  instinct, 
and  fused,  by  continual  practice,  into  habit.  No 
doubt  the  habit  is  still  imperfect  and  the  swallows  have 
some  way  to  go  before  they  can  become  as  weather- 
tight  and  weather-wise  as  avian  prudence  and  fore- 
sight can  achieve.  If  they  ever  do  so  learn  their  job, 
and  (apart  from  the  interference  of  man  1)  still  further 
minimize  their  losses,  it  would  naturally  follow  that 
they  would  rear  still  fewer  offspring  in  a  season,  it  being 
a  truer  economy  to  have  fewer  young  that  live  than 

travel  a  thousand  miles  in  a  few  hours  ?  how  do  birds  avoid  travel- 
ing in  circles  at  night  ?  how  do  they  anticipate  weather  changes  ? 
how,  at  twenty  thousand  feet  above  the  ground,  can  they  tell  the 
end  of  the  journey  ?  Compared  with  these  miracles,  the  changing 
of  the  water  into  wine  reads  like  a  conjuring  trick. 

1  It  is  one  of  the  saddest  things  among  all  those  melancholy 
reflections  that  haunt  the  modern  naturalist  that  the  barbarians 
of  France,  Spain  and  Italy  are  exterminating  the  swallow,  our 
swallow,  loving  and  beloved  of  England.  It  is  to  these  uncivilized 
races  that  we  owe  this  robbery.  Three  million  swallows  were 
killed  in  the  South  of  France  for  millinery  and  food  in  one  year. 


A  DORSET  DIARY  141 

many  more  that  die,  an  economy  followed  by  nature 
among  the  higher  animals.  This  may  be  conjectural, 
but,  at  any  rate,  the  swallow  must  have  learned  some- 
thing ;  and  the  lingering  thoughtlessly  on  into  the 
sudden  peril  of  violent  tempest  with  its  holocaust  of 
lives  must  have  been  in  some  measure  abated  or  par- 
tially counteracted  by  some  fresh  stride  of  the  swallow 
mind,  some  original  adaptability  to  meet  the  stress  of 
conditions  making  for  failure  of  racial  continuity.1 

Originally,  no  doubt,  migration  was  a  "  mutation," 
that  is  to  say,  a  brilliant  idea,  a  creative  inspiration, 
a  stroke  of  genius  in  precisely  the  sense  we  apply  those 
terms  to  the  poet  and  the  artist,  born  by  the  mysterious 
ferment  of  the  germ-cells  both  in  rhythmic  obedience 
to  the  tidal  sway  of  seasonal  ebb  and  flow  and  to 
battle  with  the  pressure  of  unfavourable  external  con- 
ditions (congestion  of  numbers,  inadequate  food-supply, 
change  of  climate  and  so  on).  Then  Natural  Selection 
got  to  work  and  sifted  out  the  failing  heart,  the 
dragging  wing,  the  bewildered  sense  of  direction,  on 
the  one  hand,  while  the  active,  enterprising,  plastic 
organism  embodied  the  idea  in  perfect  workmanship 
through  successive  generations  on  the  other — again 
on  the  analogy  of  a  poet  giving  form  to  a  lyrical  im- 
pulse. Thus  the  success  of  the  golden  plover  wintering 
in  the  Hawaian  and  breeding  in  the  Aleutian  Islands 
— a  distance  of  two  thousand  miles — may  be  justly 
compared  with  a  poem  that  has  "  come  off."  The 
mutation  which  gave  birth  to  the  sublime  notion  of 
migration  has  become  of  course  an  instinctive  inherit- 
ance, but  it  has  to  be  worked  out  by  the  individual 
organism  in  its  social  relations,  as  the  details  of  an 
institution  have  to  be  worked  out.  I  do  not  mean  that 


1  Gatke's  obervations  of  the  migration  of  birds  over  Heligoland 
afford  pretty  convincing  evidence  that  the  greater  number  of 
the  migrants  fly  from  one  to  three  miles  high,  and  so  would 
become  more  or  less  superior  to  weather  conditions.  But  that 
does  not  alter  the  fact  that  (1)  this  occurs  chiefly  in  windless 
weather,  and  in  bad  the  birds  fly  much  lower,  (2)  that  vast  numbers 
do  not  attain  these  elevations  as  the  "  rushes "  at  lighthouses 
show. 


142       BIRDS   OF   THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

birds  find  their  way  by  the  exercise  of  intelligence,  acting 
upon  instinct  alone,  but  that  the  wonderful  sense  of 
direction,  germinally  implanted  as  an  instinct,  depends 
for  its  effective  practice  upon  the  qualities  of  the  birds 
themselves.  The  impulse  to  spring  migration,  for  in- 
stance, has  been  suggestively  called  a  "  constitutional 
home-sickness,"  and  the  species  which  feel  it  most 
acutely  and  employ  all  their  wits  and  energies  to  making 
a  success  of  it  will  be  those  that  survive  and  prosper. 
The  fact  that  some  species — puffins  for  example- 
depart  and  arrive  with  a  punctuality  that  seems 
automatic  does  not  affect  the  argument.  For  on  the 
one  hand  they  have  achieved  this  punctuality  by  an 
experimentalism  extending  over  thousands  of  years  in 
the  past,  and  sea-birds  are  much  hardier  and  more 
independent  of  weather  conditions  on  the  other.  And, 
even  though  migration  works  almost  like  clockwork 
nowadays,  there  are  still  mistakes,  confusions  and 
failures  remediable  by  learning  the  consequences. 
Migration,  again,  is  a  method  of  "  peace  by  negotiation," 
a  way  out  of  the  intensified  struggle  for  subsistence 
brought  .about  by  over-population. 

The  "  survival  of  the  fittest "  means  no  more  nor 
less  than  the  urge  and  pressure  of  God  knocking  sense 
into  hippopotami,  men,  water-lilies,  blue-tits,  spiders 
and  roses.  Learn  the  sense  to  do  this  and  avoid  that, 
and  you  shall  live ;  refuse  to  learn,  and  take  the  con- 
sequences. 

Along  the  beach  (which  is  all  shingle  and  sorry 
walking)  I  met  with  a  new  and  uncommon  species 
here — the  greater  black-backed  gull — a  fine  sight  as 
he  flew  close  down  by  the  sea,  which  was  dead  calm. 
On  the  cliffs  to  the  south  of  the  village  I  watched  half 
a  dozen  kestrels.  They  would  launch  themselves 
straight  out  from  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  turn  abruptly 
back,  and  then  wheel  sporting  to  and  fro,  up  and  down 
the  cliff-face.  Their  light  reddish-brown  matched  the 
coloration  of  the  cliff  so  perfectly  that  when  hard 
against  it  they  would  magically  disappear  and  as 
suddenly  re-emerge  against  the  sky  or  a  darker  portion 
of  the  cliff.  Probably  a  young  brood,  exercising  with 


A  DORSET  DIARY  143 

their  mother,  whose  rufous  mantle  their  own  resemble. 
The  back  of  the  male  is  bluish-grey. 

October  25th. — I  wandered  along  the  stream,  or  rather 
ditch,  which  loads  through  the  cultivated  valley  to 
the  foot  of  the  bare,  rolling,  down-like  hills.  Out  of 
a  small  clump  of  elms  (what  Andrew  Marvell  called  a 
"  plume  "  of  trees)  flew  no  fewer  than  fifteen  magpies 
some  thirty  yards  from  where  I  stood.  Among  the 
low  alders,  brambles,  and  willows  growing  along  the 
stream-bank  I  fell  in  with  a  company  of  travelling  tits, 
strung  out  in  a  long  line,  threading  the  bushes  like  rain 
penetrating  foliage,  and  chirping  away  to  one  another, 
to  keep  the  flock  together.  All  four  kinds  were  there 
and  half  a  dozen  tree-creepers  as  well ;  but  not,  alas  ! 
the  long-tailed  tit,  for  he  wellnigh  perished  out  of 
England  in  the  terrible  winter  of  1916-17.  In  some 
places  the  trees  were  alive  with  the  birds,  and  they 
looked  like  a  travelling  circus  of  minute  acrobats.  That 
is  rather  a  vulgar  comparison,  for  there  was  nothing 
idle  or  grotesque  in  their  antics.  They  were  extra- 
ordinarily engrossed  and  energetic  little  nomads,  devas- 
tating the  insect  world  that  lay  in  their  path.  A  wren 
sang  in  the  midst  of  them.  He,  like  the  tits,  is  a 
small  workman,  who  suspends  labour  for  a  moment  to 
express  his  satisfaction  in  good  work  well  accomplished. 

October  26th. — The  sight  to-day  were  the  starlings. 
A  flock  of  about  a  hundred  was  moving  to  a  single 
consciousness  across  the  grey  sky.  It  was  like  a  cloud 
directed  by  intelligent  force.  It  would  thin  out  in  a  long 
line,  bend  its  extremities  into  a  crescent,  and  then  mould 
itself  into  a  ball.  Then  it  would  divide  in  two  and  wind 
in  upon  itself  in  beautiful  and  orderly  conformation. 
Such  manoeuvres  were  never  seen  among  us  earth- 
bound  men..  At  the  same  time  gulls  in  hundreds  were 
drifting  in  from  the  sea  to  feed  among  the  fallows ; 
the  rooks  (the  rookery  hereabouts  is  at  least  three 
hundred  strong)  were  massed  high  in  the  distance ; 
troops  of  finches  dashed  across  the  expanse,  and  a 
pair  of  carrion  crows  hoarsely  applauded  from  the 
tops  of  a  group  of  bright-berried  rowans.  It  was  both 
an  exhilarating  and  a  restful  spectacle — our  English 


144       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

bird-life  seen  at  its  freest,  most  expansive,  and  rhyth- 
mical. The  birds  all  seemed  to  be  falling  into  measure 
with  the  throbbing  spirit  of  the  universe.  They  in  their 

Pure  and  circling  thoughts  express 
The  greater  Heaven  in  an  Heaven  less. 

October  27th. — The  green  woodpecker  is  common  here, 
and  I  saw  or  heard  him  every  day,  either  in  flight 
or  upon  hedgerow  elms  or  feeding  upon  ants  on  banks. 
Indeed,  without  seeing  Fletcher's  or  Shakespeare's 
"  chattering  pies  "  or  hearing  this  woodpecker's  tumult- 
uous, abandoned  laughter,  as  though  Nature  leaped 
like  David  before  the  Ark  and  shouted  for  joy,  the  day 
for  me  was  a  dies  non,  and  this  sight  and  this  sound 
have  ever  remained  to  me  the  first  in  favour  above  all 
others  which  large  birds  can  give.  We  can  see  him 
or  rather  hear  him  too  from  the  other  end  of  the 
tale,  for  there  are  times  when  he  suspends  his  song 
half-way  to  the  end,  and  there  is  a  certain  resemblance 
to  the  loud  double  chirp  of  the  greater  spotted  wood- 
pecker, itself  perhaps  close  to  the  original  call-note  of 
the  woodpecker  family,  from  which  springs  the  beautiful, 
proud  voice  of  our  bird. 

It  is  strange  to  think  that  the  world  of  animate 
nature  was  once  "  dumb  "  indeed.  The  Labyrinthodonts 
of  the  Permian  period  must  have  achieved  their  great 
conquest  of  the  land  without  any  shout  of  triumph — 
have  mated  silently,  grappled  silently  and  died  silently. 
What  amphibian  was  it  that  first  used  language  and 
startled  a  speechless  world  with  the  first  grunt  or  roar 
ever  heard  ?  He  anticipated  Shakespeare.  Witchell  in 
his  remarkable  and  unjustly  neglected  Evolution  of  Bird- 
Song  suggests  that  the  first  articulations  of  birds  were 
produced  by  the  excitement  of  fighting,  which  agitated 
their  lungs.  But  it  is  just  as  likely  that  they  were 
produced  by  the  excitements  of  sexual  impulse,  that 
they  were  call-notes  rather  than  alarm  or  battle-cries, 
the  alarm-cry  possibly  being  a  variant  of  the  call-note, 
which  was  seized  upon  by  sexual  selection,  and  gradually 
differentiated  and  elaborated  like  plumage  and  display. 


A  DORSET  DIARY  145 

Witchell  suggests  ingeniously  that  it  has  been  want  of 
leisure  which  has  prevented  the  development  of  song 
among  tropical  species — leisure  being  indispensable  to 
varied  singing  and  temperate  species  having  fewer 
natural  enemies.  It  seems  a  little  fanciful,  for  tropical 
species  have  plenty  of  time  to  be  absorbed  in  nuptial 
dance,  and  hawks  are  of  world-wide  distribution.  Bright 
plumage  is  the  song  of  the  tropical  bird.  At  any  rate 
the  alarm  cry  has  remained  less  differentiated  than  the 
call -note  from  which,  first  by  repetition  (as  occurs  in 
simpler  songs)  and  then  by  changes  of  pitch,  tone, 
pause,  etc.,  song  as  we  know  it,  has  been  evolved.  So 
to  listen  first  to  the  call-note  and  then  the  song  of  the 
nightingale  is  a  shorthand  of  evolution.  The  world 
did  not  begin  with  the  roseate  spoonbill  and  the  bird 
of  paradise,  nor  the  thrush's  maternal  devotion,  nor 
the  symmetry  of  the  tiger  burning  bright  in  the  forests 
of  the  night,  nor  the  swiftness  of  the  hare  nor  the 
curves  of  the  antelope.  They  have  been  achieved  in 
their  perfection  by  the  enthusiasm  and  industry  of 
countless  experiments,  by  elaboration  from  the  dust  of 
substance,  by  fugues  wrung  out  of  croaks,  wings  out 
of  scales,  beating  hearts,  warm  blood  and  softest  down 
out  of  gelatine,  even  as  we  have  conjured  the  Dryad 
of  flame  out  of  petrified  timber. 

Green  woodpeckers  are  called  "  yaffles "  in  Dorset, 
but  their  fine  old  name  of  "  yappingale "  is  lost  with 
the  wellnigh  vanished  Dorset  dialect.  For  the  Dorset 
folk  cannot  understand  their  own  dialect  poet,  William 
Barnes,  as  I  have  repeatedly  proved.  Other  names, 
now  vanished,  for  the  green  woodpecker  were  "  rain- 
bird,"  "  hewel  "  (he whole — Andrew  Marvell)  and  "  wood- 
wale."  The  latter  occurs  in  Chaucer's  translation  of 
the  "  Roman  de  la  Rose,"  and  both  original  and  version 
are  so  beautiful  that  I  am  tempted  to  give  them  both : — 

II  etoit  tout   couvert  d'oisiaulx 
De  rossignols  et  de  papagaux 
De  calendre  et  de  mesangel. 
H  semblait  que  ce  flit  une  angel 
Qui  fuz  tout  droit  venuz  du  ciel. 

10 


146       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

Chaucer's  paraphrase  is  as  follows  : — 

But  nightingales,  a  full  great  rout 

That  flien  over  his  head  about, 

The  leaves  felden  as  they  flien, 

And  he  was  all  with  birds  wien, 

With  popinjay,  with  nightingale, 

With  chelaundre  and  with  wodewale, 

With  finch,  with  lark,  and  with  archangel. 

He  seemed  as  he  were  an  angell, 

That  down  were  comen  from  Heaven  clear. 

What  the  chelaundre  is  I  know  not.  According  to 
Ruskin  (a  very  doubtful  authority)  "  mesangel  "  (Anglice, 
archangel)  is  a  provincialism  from  /j,eioi> — viz.  smallest, 
viz.  a  titmouse.  But  why  not  a  goldcrest,  then,  or  a 
wren  ? 

October  28th. — I  walked  out  into  the  wildest  parts 
of  the  hills.  The  country  gets  more  desolate  in  this 
direction,  and  there  are  some  fine  prospects,  or  rather 
lines  and  slopes,  for  this  part  of  Dorset  is  nearly  all 
form  and  no  colour.  I  came  across  a  bloodthirsty  weasel, 
dragging  a  large  buck  rabbit  after  it.  The  little  savage 
would  only  leave  its  prey  when  I  was  hard  upon 
it,  and  then  only  lopped  off  reluctantly  for  a  few 
yards.  I  am  not  sure  that  one  cannot  discover  the 
presence  of  evil  in  the  weasel,  so  rare  in  nature.  For 
killing  out  of  blood-lust  (as  the  weasel  does)  and  not 
for  food  is  surely  evil  as  indeed  it  is  useless.  There 
is  no  need  to  be  too  anthropomorphic  or  to  apply 
the  standards  of  a  higher  stratum  of  evolution  to 
those  of  a  lower.  What  is  "  evil  "  in  the  vertebrate 
animal  may  be  "  good "  in  the  mollusc.  The  truth 
of  the  matter  is  in  Lecky's  saying  that  an  individual 
or  nation  which  falls  below  the  ethical  standards  of 
his  or  its  own  time  is  more  immoral  than  an  individual 
or  nation  of  a  lower  grade  which  keeps  pace  with  those 
of  his  or  its  own  time,  even  though  absolutely  the 
action  of  the  latter  is  morally  much  worse  than  that 
of  the  former.  Degeneration  is  a  relative  term,  and  we 
justly  call  the  cuckoo  and  the  weasel  "  evil  "  because 
their  average  conduct  is  inferior  to  that  of  their  avian 
and  mammalian  congeners.  But  it  is  a  highly  complex 


A  DORSET  DIARY  147 

problem,  and  I  forbear  to  penetrate  it  except  to  suggest 
that  if  nature  be  quite  perfect,  the  absorbing  interest 
of  evolution,  that  gradual  infiltration  of  the  spirit  into 
matter  is  destroyed  and  the  future  mortgaged.  Our 
joy  in  nature  is  born  not  only  of  her  exceeding  beauty, 
but  of  that  very  imperfection  which  prescribes  conflict 
and  glorifies  its  end. 

Assuredly,  if  we  find  mental,  emotional  and  aesthetic 
qualities  in  animals — and  mind  is  no  more  a  monopoly 
of  man  than  beauty — we  occasionally  find  their  corre- 
lative, evil,  the  prerogative,  in  a  complex  form,  of  man.1 

November  2nd. — The  sea  was  running  high  and  fast 
to-day  in  bright,  glad,  highly-strung  weather  (like 
Alexander  Smith's  day,  strayed  from  its  April  home) 
and  riding  and  cresting  the  great  curling  waves  was  a 
mass  of  herring  gulls,  partly  on  and  partly  above  the 
breakers,  so  that  gulls  and  waves  seemed  of  one  sub- 
stance, in  a  relationship  by  which  their  separate  iden- 
tities wavered  and  were  exchanged.  It  was  a  sudden 
apparition  of  the  materialized  spirit  of  wild  freedom.  On 
the  shingle,  pied  wagtails  were  running  and  singing, 
so  blended  with  the  greys  and  high  lights  of  the  stones 
that  it  was  difficult  to  distinguish  them.  I  notice  that 
the  wren  now  often  breaks  off  his  period  short  of  the 
trill.  But  the  quality  of  the  voice  after  the  autumn 
moult  was  very  pure  and  sweet.  The  winter  climate 
here  is  so  mild  this  year  that  lambs  are  daily  being 
born  and  are  abroad  with  their  mothers  well  into  the 
dusk. 

November  3rd. — In  spite  of  the  open  country,  larks 
are  rare  here — both  in  summer  and  winter.  It  was 
quite  an  event  to  meet  with  a  small  band  of  them. 
Gluttony  and  "  economic  ornithology "  are  doing  the 
trick.  The  folly  of  the  utilitarian  spirit  lately  abroad 
runs  its  ugliness  very  close.  I  remember  passing  some 
allotments  in  the  summer — the  district  shall  be  name- 

1  See  Romanes'  [Mental  Evolution  of  Animals]  list  of  the  emo- 
tions of  animals.  The  psychology  of  animals  is  also  discussed 
by  Tyler,  Simpson,  Thomson,  Drummond,  Gamble,  Julian 
Huxley,  Lloyd  Morgan,  and  other  philosophic  biologists,  not  to 
mention  the  suggestive  correspondence  columns  of  the  Spectator. 


148       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

less  for  the  credit  of  its  people — sown  with  potatoes 
alone.  Blackbirds  and  thrushes  (whose  exasperating 
beaks  were  specially  modified  to  serve  as  spades  the 
moment  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  landed  on  our  shores  with 
a  potato  tuber  in  his  pocket)  were  hanging  half-decom- 
posed from  wires  fastened  to  poles  stuck  in  the  ground. 
How  much  less  silent  are  these  winter  months  than 
were  August  and  July  !  We  hear  not  the  bird's  songs, 
but  their  conversation. 

November  4>th. — Up  in  the  hills  I  saw  a  solitary  siskin, 
in  company  with  cole-tits,  and  a  few  yards  further  on, 
three  goldfinches  sitting  on  a  dogrose-spray  in  the 
hedge.  How  pleasant  to  think  that  I  owe  the  sight 
of  this  feathered  cherub  to  the  efforts  of  Mr.  W.  H. 
Hudson  !  We  do  not  see  them,  alas  !  in  their  tens  of 
thousands,  as  Cobbett  used  to  do.  But  some  years 
ago  they  were  nearly  extinct  in  Dorset,  and  Mr.  Hudson 
relates  that  he  tramped  fifty  miles  of  Dorset  soil  with- 
out seeing  one.  Now  that  the  bird-catcher  has  been 
slightly  checked  from  depopulating  England  of  its 
loveliest  small  birds,  the  goldfinches  are  a  little  on  the 
increase.  I  have  seen  them  in  half  a  dozen  different 
places  within  a  circuit  of  four  miles,  on  the  cliffs,  in 
orchards,  on  the  uplands,  and  actually  in  the  village 
itself — sometimes  in  flocks  of  from  six  to  a  dozen. 

November  9th. — To-day  I  saw  a  sparrow-hawk  hover- 
ing (they  do  hover,  though  less  obviously  than  the 
kestrel)  right  over  the  farm-house  where  I  am  staying.1 

I  spent  some  time  in  the  cider  orchard  adjoining 
the  northern  outpost  of  my  village  and  saw  never  a 
bird.  In  the  early  summer  it  was  a  birds'  club  and, 
like  ancient  Athenians  and  modern  art  circles,  I  was 
always  running  after  some  new  thing  in  it.  A  thick 
sprawling  hedge  surrounded  it,  bulging  inside  with 
bramble  and  pierced  at  intervals  by  tall  elms.  The 

I  I  regret  the  scarcity  of  hawks  not  only  for  their  own  sake  and 
my  pleasure  in  seeing  them,  but  because  they  keep  their  prey 
in  health  and  vitality,  by  picking  off  the  weaklings  in  the  one 
and  the  laggards  in  the  other,  because  their  removal  upsets  the 
poise  of  life  and  because  it  shows  modern  man  to  be  a  wanton 
fool. 


A  DORSET  DIARY  149 

ground,  all  waving  with  feathery  grasses,  tilted  gently 
down  to  a  narrow  stream  or  ditch  crowded  in  with 
pollard  willows,  alders  and  more  bramble  and  fields 
spread  widely  out  from  its  old  and  lichened  apple-trees 
on  three  sides  ;  so  that  it  was  a  well-chosen  site  for  a 
Parliament  of  Foules.  Hither  came  regularly  all  three 
woodpeckers,  the  greater  spotted  most  of  all.  I  once 
crept  to  within  a  few  inches  of  him  when  he  was  probing 
an  apple-tree  bark  on  the  further  side  of  me,  and  we 
both  popped  our  heads  over  the  gap  where  it  forked 
into  branches  at  one  and  the  same  moment.  My  vis- 
d-vis  was  paralysed  with  astonishment,  and  for  about 
five  seconds  he  gaped  at  me  as  I  at  his  white  cheeks 
and  forehead,  black  crown  and  scarlet  nape,  before  he 
sped  away,  winding  among  the  boles  with  loud  ex- 
clamations of  alarm.  The  lesser  spotted  or  "  barred  " 
woodpecker  usually  kept  to  the  tops  of  the  elms,  but 
he  once  perched  among  the  branches  of  an  overturned 
tree  on  whose  root  I  was  sitting,  a  duodecimo  edition 
in  his  barred  plumage  of  the  chequered  sunlight  entangled 
in  the  dark  matted  twigs.  Hither,  too,  came  the  lovely 
diamonded  wryneck,  announcing  his  presence  by  his 
thrice-repeated  peal  and  striking  terror  perhaps  into 
the  ants  clustering  the  lichened  boles.  I  saw  him  every 
day  for  a  week,  and  I  vow  he  got  used  to  me.  Then 
he  disappeared  and  I  never  saw  him  more.  For  how 
many  years  longer  will  English  orchards  shelter  the 
*'  cuckoo's  boder,"  a  romantic  bird  gradually  failing 
us  and  so  doomed  in  the  future  to  end  his  days  in  a 
glass  case  ?  Here,  too,  stridulated  the  grasshopper 
warbler ;  small  breakdown  gangs  of  goldfinches  used 
to  float  the  tree-tops  like  motes  of  sun  and  set  to  work 
to  clear  the  thistle-heads  by  the  stream ;  a  sparrow- 
hawk  occasionally  policed  the  hedges  and  a  butcher- 
bird appeared  now  and  again,  though  his  pitch  was 
elsewhere.  High  in  the  greenery  of  one  of  the  elms  a 
wood-wren  quartered  himself  for  some  time,  and  I  used 
to  make  a  point  of  sitting  at  its  foot  in  the  evening  to 
hear  his  leafy  song,  preluded  by  bright  strokes — chit, 
chit,  chit,  chit — running  with  beautiful  abandon  into  a 
quavering  trill,  as  he  shivered  his  long,  bright  wings. 


150       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

Why  he  (a  wanderer  and  a  lover  of  beech  and  oak) 
selected  this  elm  rather  than  the  others  I  do  not  know, 
but  so  it  was.  Not  far  from  it  on  the  further  side  of 
the  stream,  where  had  grown  fairy  windflowers  and 
bluebells  "  at  whose  birth  the  sod  scarce  heaved,"  all 
air,  all  hue,  immaterial  like  the  sigh  of  spring,  there  in 
the  meadow,  I  had  flushed  a  corncrake  and  actually 
put  that  wedge-shaped  body  to  flight,  the  only  corn- 
crake I  have  seen  for  two  years.1  Here,  too,  the  elegant 
nuthatch  came  to  disport  himself  and  point  and  curvet 
among  the  boles  to  the  song  of  the  blackcap  and  owls 
and  jays  used  to  take  it  en  voyage.  The  back-benchers 
were  in  strong  force,  and  oxeye,  creeper,  greenfinch, 
chaffinch,  throstle,  blackbird  and  wren  nested  herein 
or  close  by.  Only  two  reared  a  family.  But  now  this 
storied  orchard  was  utterly  deserted.  Nor  was  it  really 
curious,  for  one  of  the  unwritten  laws  of  autumnal 
bird  movements  is  to  take  to  the  open. 

November  12th. — The  fieldfares  have  come  at  last, 
and  I  would  meet  them  rushing  overhead  with  their 
loud  chack  chack,  or  all  facing  one  way  both  on  the 
ground  and  in  the  trees,  as  though,  as  Vaughan  says, 
"  expecting  some  hidden  matter." 

I  saw  my  redpoles  again  in  the  same  place.  They 
are  a  well-decorated  little  bird,  of  the  titmouse  shape 
and  character,  but  of  richer  and  deeper  tints,  the  velvety 
maroon  of  the  crown  throwing  up  the  warm  mottlings 
of  the  back  and  subtly  varying  the  rusty  red  (carmine 
in  spring)  of  the  breast  and  black  of  the  chin,  itself 
shading  into  a  buffy  white  on  the  belly.  One  of  the 
males  sat  conspicuously  perched  at  the  top  of  a  vertical 
twig,  almost  motionless.  Now  he  would  dive  down  into 
the  field  to  feed,  and  then  resume  his  perch  ;  now  he 
would  spring  a  dozen  yards  into  the  air,  turn  a  kind 
of  somersault,  and  descend  again  to  the  same  perch. 
He  never  bothered  himself  about  my  near  approach.  We 
both  enjoyed  ourselves.  The  rooks,  in  spite  of  the 
dull  day,  were  holding  a  committee  meeting  in  the 

1  The  keeled  sternum  of  the  corncrake  is,  like  that  of  the  water- 
rail,  specially  adapted  and  narrowed  to  enable  it  to  plough  through 
the  thick  grass. 


A  DORSET  DIARY  151 

rookery,  debating  (with  some  heckling  and  dissension) 
the  pros  and  cons  of  repairing  the  dilapidations  of  their 
homes.  The  motion  was  finally  thrown  out,  or  at  least 
referred  to  the  Highways  Sub-Committee,  for  presently 
they  came  trooping  out  with  nothing  done. 

November  13th. — In  a  small  cup-shaped  depression  of 
a  large  sloping  grass  field,  fringed  with  a  few  reeds 
and  with  a  little  water  in  it  (rather  like  a  dewpond — 
in  the  valley),  I  flushed  a  common  snipe — much  to  my 
surprise,  since,  lonely  as  the  country  is,  it  is  divided 
up  among  small  farms  and  highly  cultivated.  The 
mottled  bird  zigzagged  off  so  quickly  that  I  could  not 
have  told  it  was  not  our  winter  visitor  the  jacksnipe, 
but  for  the  fact  that  it  sprang  up  with  a  strident,  grating 
cry.  I  used  to  hear  the  snipe  "  drumming  "  or  "  bleat- 
ing "  every  evening  in  the  spring  further  north  in  the 
wilder  country  towards  the  Wiltshire  border.  A  pair 
had  nested  in  a  bog  starred  with  asphodel  and  sundew, 
and  in  the  twilight  the  male's  ghostly  sport  began,  a 
diffused  and  mysterious  sound  like  the  twittering  of 
Virgilian  shades  in  Hades. 

November  16th. — After  watching  half  a  dozen  magpies 
flying  and  settling  leisurely  about  a  patch  of  the  valley 
meadowland,  I  suddenly,  while  passing  a  thick  hedge, 
ran  my  eyes  straight  against  a  smaller  edition  of  them. 
It  was  a  pied  blackbird,  a  male  with  golden  beak,  black 
body,  and  wings  pure  snow-white  (i.e.  blue-white  in 
shadow).  He  was  a  morsel  cut  out  of  the  tropics,  and 
very  brilliant  among  the  uniform  greys  and  browns 
of  his  surroundings.  I  stood  within  a  couple  of  feet 
of  this  fine  creature.  As  I  neared  home  a  pied  wagtail 
was  disporting  himself  upon  a  thatched  roof.  How 
exhilarating  are  his  sudden  spasms  of  uncontrollable 
joy,  when  he  leaps  up  into  the  air,  or  dashes  with 
lowered  head  along  in  a  run  like  a  trill,  and  ends  by 
frantically  waving  his  tail  !  He  positively  cannot  con- 
tain himself  for  the  ecstasy  of  living,  and  I  have  often 
seen  him  literally  tumble  off  a  roof  in  glee,  and  only 
recover  himself  when  near  the  ground.  The  ornith- 
ologists call  him  Motacilla  lugubris. 

The  sun  came  shouldering  out  of  a  thick  cloud  as  I 


152       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

reached  home,  so  for  me  this  was  not  so  much  a  red- 
letter  as  a  pied  day.  It  began  with  the  black  upper- 
most, for  I  found  a  shot  crow  lying  in  the  fallows. 
There  I  buried  him  and  placed  a  tombstone  of  clods 
at  his  head.  Now  that  he  has  flown  our  many-coloured 
glass-house,  perhaps  he  has  reached  "  a  place  more 
rare,"  where  God  has  granted  his  creatures  a  stronger 
sense  of  humour.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  kindred 
are  the  characters  of  magpie  and  pied  wagtail. 

November  17th. — The  bullfinches  have  taken  to  the 
hedges,  and  to-day  I  had  a  sight  of  six  of  them.  Nor 
was  it  a  fugitive  glimpse,  as  one  expects  with  rare  and 
persecuted  birds.  For  these  birds  kept  about  twenty 
yards  ahead  of  me  for  over  a  mile,  flying  in  and  out 
of  the  hedge  and  frequently  allowing  an  approach  of 
twelve  feet.  At  one  time  I  was  so  close  to  a  female 
that  I  had  only  to  stretch  out  my  hand,  had  I  desired 
to  capture  her.  It  is  not  surprising  the  bullfinch  is 
rare ;  it  is  more  so  that  he  has  not  been  extirpated. 
It  has  always  been  a  pleasure  to  me  that  old  Bewick 
defended  the  bullfinch's  "disbudding"  utility.  "It  is 
usefully  busy,"  he  also  says,  "  in  destroying  the  worms 
that  are  lodged  in  the  tender  buds."  But  gardeners 
live  by  bread  alone,  and  so  get  nothing  but  half  a  loaf. 
Not  that  I  care  whether  or  no  the  bullfinch  lives  up 
to  his  reputation.  But  I  know  that  self-interest  does 
not  look  before  and  after,  and  that  there  is  nothing  in 
this  world  that  brings  so  practical  a  well-being  as 
reverence  for  beauty  and  respect  for  life.  Even  were 
it  not  so,  and  the  universe  a  lie  in  consequence,  are 
there  many  who  would  not  give  a  few  apples  to  see 
the  bullfinch's  rosy  apple  breast,  blushing  through  the 
leaves — and  not  a  core  but  a  warm  heart  beating 
beneath  it  ?  For  the  bullfinch  is  part  of  the  true  glory 
of  England,  and  in  time  will  be  exterminated  by 
gardeners,  bird-catchers,  and  the  female  savages  who 
wear  "  wreaths  "  of  them  in  their  hats. 

In  my  most  careless  days,  the  endangering  of  the 
life  of  a  highly  developed  species,  even  if  only  out  of 
this  loved  land  of  ours,  seemed  to  me  a  sorry  thing. 
Now  in  later  years,  when  I  have  made  some  study  of 


A  DORSET  DIARY  153 

biology,  which  so  inimitably  expands  the  wonder  and 
enhances  the  mystery  of  life,  the  extinction  of  a  high 
species  by  the  arbitrary  action  of  man  seems  terrible 
to  me.  A  species  is  "  a  sort  of  visible  fugue  wander- 
ing about  a  central  theme,"  and  to  scratch  out  a  beauti- 
ful note  in  it  is  irreparable.  These  gaily  plumaged 
bullfinches  of  mine  took  short  flights,  were  heavy  on 
the  wing,  extremely  conspicuous  both  at  rest  and  in 
motion  (the  white  rump  being  as  plain  to  the  sight  in 
flight  as  that  of  the  house-martin  and  greenshank),  and 
not  at  all  wary.  Their  alarm-cry,  too — a  low  and  grate- 
fully melodious  pipe — once  heard,  cannot  fail  to  be 
recognized.  They  were  feeding  on  the  haws  and  the 
black  currants  of  the  wild  madder,  an  abundant  ever- 
green in  patches  in  the  south-west,  and  very  conspicuous 
as  it  climbs  among  the  naked  twigs  with  its  dark  berries 
and  whorls  of  glossy  green  leaves.  That  is  your  bull- 
finch. He  goes  about  the  wrorld,  like  a  wandering 
minstrel,  making  colour  tunes. 

November  20th. — In  a  spinney  of  mixed  spindle  and 
dogwood,  with  yews  growing  in  it  (I  usually  avoid  woods, 
so  empty  are  they  of  wild  life),  I  believe  I  saw  goldcrests, 
but  I  could  not  be  sure,  they  were  so  high  up.  I 
would  I  had  been,  for  the  goldcrest  was  all  but  scratched 
off  the  list  of  the  English  avifauna  in  the  winter  of 
1916-17.1  I  flushed  a  woodcock,  the  only  one  I  have 
seen  in  this  part  of  the  country.  The  wren  was  singing 
mightily,  and  his  song  took  on  a  kind  of  enchantment, 
almost  a  fantasy  among  the  silent  trees — not  at  all 
belonging  to  its  normal,  bright,  busy,  work-a-day  quality. 
Thus  do  birds'  songs  differ,  not  only  from  individual 
to  individual  of  the  same  species,  but  according  to  the 
mood  of  the  day,  the  season  of  the  year,  and  the 
character  of  the  place  in  which  they  are  sung.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  how  often  a  bird's  song  is  the 
precise  expression  of  the  bird's  temperament — robin, 
chaffinch,  willow-warbler,  wren,  dunnock,  blue-tit,  sparrow, 
linnet,  and  yellow-hammer,  for  instance. 

In    Mr.    Boraston's    book    (Birds    by    Land    and    Sea) 

1  They  are,  however,  recovering,  and  I  have  seen  them  in 
numbers  since  in  different  parts  of  the  country. 


154       BIRDS  OF   THE    COUNTRYSIDE 

there  is  a  discussion  of  the  elaboration  of  song  from 
the  primitive  call-note.1  The  actual  notes  of  a  bird's 
song  are  no  doubt  an  ancestral  inheritance,  but  the 
quality  of  their  composition  depends  upon  the  educa- 
bility  of  the  young  birds,  upon  their  power  of  profiting 
by  the  lessons  of  their  parents.  If  the  power  of  song 
was  germinally  transmitted  from  parent  to  offspring  as 
completely  as  more  automatic  functions  (the  feeding 
specialization  of  a  snipe  or  woodcock,  for  instance), 
we  should  not  find,  as  we  certainly  do,  great  differences 
in  musical  quality  between  individuals  of  the  same 
species.  The  call-note,  on  the  other  hand,  is  vastly 
more  uniform,  far  less  susceptible  to  individual  modifi- 
cation, and  a  much  truer  indication  of  family  relation- 
ships and  common  descent  from  general  types.  The 
alarm,  recognition  and  call-notes  are  a  racial  entail ; 
the  song  individual  and  acquired  through  filial  imitation 
in  successive  generations. 

All  evolution  has  been  won  out  of  some  kind  of 
individual  effort  and  free  will,  and  every  nestling  must 
learn  the  melody  that  the  character  of  its  parents  has 
wrested  for  it  out  of  the  uniform  backward  of  time. 
So  it  is  in  art,  and  every  fine  poem,  statue  and  symphony 
repeats  in  little  the  story  of  evolution,  while  anticipating 
its  climax.  The  difference  between  a  bird's  call-note 
and  its  song  is  the  same  difference  as  that  between  writing 
and  literature. 

I  am  wrong  about  the  colour  of  Dorset.  On  a  fine 
day  like  this  the  bare  shoulders  of  land  are  suffused, 
or  rather  blushed,  with  a  peculiar,  ethereal,  delicate 
pearl.  Pink,  blue  and  lavender  are  all  in  pearl,  but 
the  greens  and  browns  seem  to  distil  into  this  gauze- 
like  lustre  as  well.  If  one  stands  upon  one  of  these 
shoulders  and  looks  across  the  chequered  fields  to  the 
low-lying  purple  ranges  of  hills  beyond  and  other  ame- 
thystine ranges  beyond  them,  all  in  half-tones,  then 
the  true  inwardness  of  this  part  of  Dorset  is  rather 
intensified  than  lost.  For  one  views  the  glories  of  its 
setting,  as  a  man  putting  his  hand  to  some  close  detail 
of  craftsmanship  will  see  it  give  sudden  form  to  the 

1  See  above. 


A  DORSET   DIARY  155 

whole  traceried  design,  behind  which  glow  the  meaning 
and  perspective  of  all  the  universe.  But  the  eye  travels 
by  chance  upon  a  clump  of  beech  from  whose  dark 
filigreed  twigs  dangle  a  few  late  leaves  of  beaten  gold 
—and  the  setting  fades  before  this  new  and  intimate 
enchantment.  I  notice  that  the  tits  in  this  mild  winter 
climate  are  as  often  to  be  seen  in  pairs  as  communities. 

November  25th. — Up  in  the  hills  I  came  out  of  a 
lane  into  the  open  pasture.  A  crow  started  up  at  my 
feet  and  pelted  away,  shouting  out  at  the  top  of  his 
voice — "  Look  out,  look  out,  here  comes  one  of  those 
murderous  human  louts  !  "  Two  redwings  (I  have  seen 
very  few  of  them  this  winter)  dashed  away  in  an  aban- 
donment of  terror  with  a  wild  irregular  flight ;  a  small 
flock  of  pipits  sprang  aloft  with  squeaks  of  dismay ; 
a  throstle  plunged  into  the  undergrowth  of  the  hedge  ; 
three  wood-pigeons  left  their  tree  and  fanned  the  air 
with  the  speed  of  the  wind ;  and  a  magpie,  floating 
amiably  along,  hurled  himself  headlong  to  the  earth, 
to  put  the  slope  between  him  and  me.  Such  is  the 
welcome  accorded  to  the  human  form  divine.  As  men 
pursue  happiness,  so  bird-lovers  the  birds,  and  with  the 
same  results.  For  it  is  ourselves  who  are  the  outcasts 
of  nature,  not  the  crow  and  the  pie.  Our  sovereign 
capacity  so  misused  has  made  us  foreigners  upon  this 
green  earth. 

December  2nd. — I  met  a  rarish  bird  to-day,  the  short- 
eared  owl,  out  at  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
and  hunting  formally  and  silently  close  to  the  ground, 
like  a  small  feathered  greyhound.  On  the  hill  I  found 
a  victim  of  the  sparrow-hawk,  a  male  blackbird,  with 
but  the  golden  mandibles  and  a  pile  of  feathers  for  the 
epitaph  of  Colin  and  his  flute,  who  will  sing  no  more 
madrigals  to  his  Chloe  what  time  the  "  sweet  militia  " 
of  flowers  begins  once  more  to  march  along  the  vale. 
It  was  a  Cimmerian  day,  and  the  birds  passed  through 
the  mirk,  like  shadows  of  themselves.  I  made  out  a 
couple  of  nuthatches  on  one  of  the  rookery  elms.  There 
is  something  very  distinguished  about  the  nuthatch, 
and  his  beautifully  disposed  and  harmonized  colouring 
and  sprightly,  independent,  varied  movements  and 


156      BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

attitudes  about  the  bark  made  him  a  charming  picture. 
These  birds  had  a  way  of  diving  headlong  with  furled 
wings  from  a  higher  to  a  lower  branch,  dropping  like 
a  stone  through  the  air  and  alighting  with  the  utmost 
grace  and  ease.  What  a  plodder  the  tree-creeper  is 
beside  them  !  The  rooks  were  shouting  away  by  their 
nests,  bowing  their  heads,  spread-eagling  their  tails, 
flying,  floating  and  scrambling  in  a  ferment  of  excite- 
ment. Repairing  operations  had  begun,  and  I  must 
have  been  mistaken  about  the  vote.  Little  did  those 
ingenuous,  trusting  rooks  know  that  the  housing  question 
was  not  to  be  settled  for  many  a  grey  and  blustering 
day. 

December  3rd. — I  set  out,  and  within  a  hundred  yards 
blundered  through  the  Looking-Glass.  On  the  roof 
of  a  cow-byre  a  wagtail  minced,  pranced  and  twirled, 
while  the  mate  flung  himself  or  herself  through  space 
like  some  airy,  miniature  dolphin  of  a  rarer  element 
than  its  own.  Blue,  cole  and  great  tits  shone  sky- 
blue,  grey,  buff  and  black  against  the  dark  gloss  of 
ivy-draped  thorns  and  hollies.  In  the  tree  above  my 
head  a  bullfinch  dipped  his  old-rose-red  breast,  bowed 
his  lustrous  black  head  and  tilted  his  blue-grey  back 
over  some  "  daintie  dish  "  invisible  to  me.  Blackbirds 
chuckled  in  the  hedge  ;  sparrows  and  chaffinches  poked 
out  their  chests  on  the  hawthorns  ;  a  nuthatch  pried 
about  the  bark  of  an  ash  near  by ;  robin  was  in  fullest 
song,  sprinkling  coloured  jets  of  sound  into  the  still, 
grey  atmosphere;  and  a  roving  band  of  fieldfares  took 
the  sky  with  powerful  wings  overhead.  One  tells  it 
all  in  plodding  sequence,  but  it  happened  simultaneously 
and  vanished  with  the  breath  of  pleasure  one  spent 
upon  it. 

Thence  I  wandered  into  the  fields  and  watched  the 
tits,  sparrows,  finches  and  buntings,  feeding  from  the 
remains  of  a  corn-stack.  There  were  four  yellow-hammers 
and  a  pair  of  corn-buntings  on  a  small  ash  five  yards 
away,  and  the  brilliant  yellows  of  the  hammers  shone 
and  glowed  against  the  neutral  tints  of  earth  and  sky. 
It  is  when  we  get  close  to  our  native  birds  that  we 
realize  that  their  sober  sheen  is  an  illusion  of  distance. 


A  DORSET  DIARY  157 

The  colouring  of  a  large  number  of  our  species  is  quite 
radiant  after  their  honest  English  fashion. 

The  great  tit  (also  brilliant  in  his  way)  will  always 
get  on  in  the  world.  He  seems  quite  indeterminate 
in  his  way  of  living,  feeding  on  the  ground  like  a  finch, 
in  the  trees  like  a  tit,  in  the  air  like  a  fly-catcher, 
hammering  the  bark  like  a  creeper,  and  equally  at  home 
in  every  calling. 

From  this  incalculable,  indeterminate  method  of 
getting  his  living,  may  we  not  assume  that  his  species 
is  potentially  more  capable  of  variation  than  other  more 
highly  specialized  types  ?  The  great  tit,  like  the  sparrow, 
is  in  the  mid-stream  of  evolution ;  he  is  in  the  full 
current  of  progress ;  he  has  a  future  before  him.  I 
will  not  attempt  to  go  into  the  highly  complex  problems 
of  the  causes  and  conditions  of  variation,  of  the  gradual 
(or  sudden  as  sometimes  happens)  metamorphosis  of 
one  species  into  another  and  usually  higher  (as  the 
history  of  the  world  shows)  type.  But  one  may  say 
with  some  confidence  that  the  inventions  or  qualities 
which  have  contributed  more  to  the  "  differentiation 
and  integration  "  of  life  as  it  is  at  present  than  any 
other  have  been  the  following :  Increased  mobility 
(only  very  few  of  the  heavily  armoured  types  have 
survived  in  smaller  descendants  confined  within  narrow 
areas) ;  the  development  of  parental  care  (the  seed- 
bearing  plants  of  the  secondary  period  quite  ousted 
the  spore-bearers) ;  the  power  of  combining  for  mutual 
aid  (the  vast  majority  of  modern  vertebrates  are  social) ; 
the  growth  of  the  brain  and  the  nervous  system  (there 
is  an  enormous  difference  between  the  brains  of  modern 
mammals  and  the  marsupials  and  monotremes  of  the 
secondary  period) ;  the  indomitable  will  to  live  and 
all-roundness,  by  which  I  mean  the  avoidance  of  over- 
specialization.  The  gorilla  cannot  progress  because  it 
is  over-specialized.  This  last  was  the  great  point  of 
Samuel  Butler,  who  so  well  called  mutations  "  happy 
thoughts,"  and  compared  evolution  with  the  develop- 
ment of  a  fugue  from  a  very  simple  subject.  The 
Admirable  Crichtons  have  been  the  founders  of  great 
houses  and  the  heirs  of  the  ages,  and  nature  is  against 


158       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

the  expert  who  loses  touch  with  the  whole  in  his  know- 
ledge of  the  part.  "  It  is  possible,"  write  Geddes  and 
Thomson, 

to  interpret  ideals  of  ethical  progress — through  love  and 
sociability,  co-operation  and  sacrifice — not  as  mere  Utopias 
contradicted  by  experience,  but  as  the  highest  expressions  of 
the  central  evolutionary  process  of  the  natural  world.  As 
evolutionary  biologists  we  are  thus  practically  with  moralist 
and  theologian,  even  with  poet  and  sentimentalist,  if  you 
will,  against  the  "  vulgar  economist  "  of  Ruskin  or  the  self-styled 
practical  politician  of  to-day. 

Or  we  can  put  it  in  another  way,  and  say  with  the 
all-round  man  against  the  specialist,  with  the  trinity 
of  knowing,  feeling  and  doing,  with  the  good,  the  true 
and  the  beautiful  against  the  dominance  of  one  or 
other  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest.  Well,  the  great  tit 
is  in  his  small  way  an  all-rounder,  as  the  wryneck, 
for  instance,  is  not. 

December  5th. — A  day  of  small  things  but  large  birds. 
Four  and  forty  rooks  all  perched  motionless  on  a  small 
leafless  ash  presented  a  sufficiently  droll  and  fantastic 
design.  A  magpie  and  a  jay  were  sitting  comfortably 
together  on  the  same  twig,  and  as  soon  as  my  abhorred 
form  loomed  up,  the  magpie  scuttled  away  across  the 
open  field,  but  the  jay  dropped  down  on  the  further 
side  of  the  hedge  and  crept  away  invisibly  along  it. 
Ah,  friend,  thought  I  of  him,  you  will  take  some 
stamping  out  !  Pipits  keep  open  house,  for  I  find  their 
assemblies  constantly  mingled  with  larks,  finches, 
buntings  and  wagtails  in  the  fields.  I  saw  a  detach- 
ment from  this  League  of  Feathered  Nations  to-day 
fly  up  into  an  elm  where  a  kestrel  was  taking  his 
ease.  They  took  no  notice  of  him  at  all  as  he  of  them, 
not  even  to  harry  him.  The  kestrel  as  a  rule  has  much 
ado  to  keep  his  dignity,  so  pestered  is  he  by  nearly 
every  bird  that  flies.  As  for  retaliating,  he  never  dreams 
of  it,  and  were  it  not  for  his  accipitrine  turn-out,  birds 
would  no  more  regard  him  than  they  do  a  heron.  Small 
deer,  not  small  birds  are  his  concern.1 

1  By  nature,  that  is  to  say.  In  game-preserving  districts  the 
kestrel  often  becomes  a  bird-eater,  the  temptation  of  being  sur- 


A  DORSET  DIARY  159 

December  Sth. — With    the    sun    full    shining,     billowy 
clouds  edged  with  pearl,  catkins  in  the  hedges,  campions 
in  the  banks,  daisies  and  knapweed  in  the  fields,  a  few 
primroses,    "  sweet   infantas   of  the   year,"   in    sheltered 
spots,  and  flaming  patches  of  gorse,  with  robins  holding 
rival   concerts,   and  the  wren  chanting  the  pleasures  of 
labour,    it    was    easy    to    say,    "  If    winter    comes,    can 
spring  be  far  behind  ?  "     The  primroses  had  come  peering 
from  their  windows  of  mould  out  of  curiosity  to  hear 
the   bleating   of  the   lambs,  and   lo,   it  was   spring  !     So 
they    remained,    leaning    out    of   their    window-sills,    en- 
joying   the    zephyrine    air    they    breathed,    when    they 
ought  to  have  been  inside,  reading  and  taking  to  heart 
a  poem  called,  "  On  an  Infant,  Dying  as  soon  as  Born." 
Surely  that  bleating  should  have  warned  them  !     I,  too, 
began  to  feel   my  sap  rising  until   I  happened  to  turn 
my   head   to   see   a   couple   of  robins   grappling   on   the 
ground   five   yards   away.     Their   wings   frantically   beat 
the  sod  and  they  were  closed  like  wrestlers,   positively 
rolling   over   and   over   right   to   my   feet.     Finally,   one 
extricated    himself    and    took    off,    the    other    champion 
pelting  after  him.     Who  was  the  victor,  older  or  younger 
generation  ?     At    any  rate,    I   know   where  to   find    one 
sovereign   robin,    princeling   of   his   little   state.     I   have 
seen    robins    fighting    desperately    scores    of   times,    but 
never  to  the  death,  and  I  believe  that  the  mortal  combat 
is    very   uncommon,    as    it   is    among   other    birds,    who 
fight   like   mad   at   mating-time,  with  an   occasional  loss 
of  a  feather  or  too.     But  I  knew  now  it  was  not  spring. 
Pheasants   were  numerous,   and   I   watched  the   rooks 
standing  two  and  three  at  a  time  on  the  cows'  backs, 
ridding  them  of  ticks  (an  example,  like  that  of  starlings 
and    sheep,    of    "  commensalism "    in    England),    while 
others    were    tackling    the    mole-heaps    and    using    their 
beaks  like  spades  to  shovel  aside  the  earth.     Curiously 
enough,    I    flushed    a    jack-snipe    in    the    same    small, 
marshy    depression    where    I    had    previously   put    up    a 
common  snipe.     It  is  a  smaller  bird,  with  a  less  sustained 

rounded  by  pheasant  chicks  being  too  much  for  him.  He  acquires 
the  taste,  and  then  becomes  more  destructive  to  wild  small  birds 
than  the  sparrow-hawk. 


160      BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

flight,  and  less  mastery  in  the  May-fly  art  of  flight, 
and  utters  no  alarm-cry  when  roused,  as  the  common 
snipe  always  does.1  I  was  standing  watching  a  robin 
singing,  when  a  wren  came  bustling  out  of  a  hedge  six 
inches  from  my  head.  Suddenly  catching  sight  of  me, 
he  bounced  up  on  a  prominent  twig  and  roundly  abused 
me  for  disturbing  his  honest  toil.  I  sneaked  off.  The 
small  birds,  thanks  to  the  warmth  and  moist  and  open 
weather,  are  very  plump  and  well-conditioned — many  of 
them  quite  portly. 

December  Wth. — Another  fine  day  and  a  walk  down 
to  the  sea,  which,  just  before  sunset,  was  of  a  very 
subtle  colouring — in  three  layers,  bottom  slate-grey, 
middle  a  pale,  cold,  delicate  blue,  and  top  powdered 
over  with  gold  dust.  It  was  soon  over,  but  magical, 
prophetic  while  it  lasted.  It  is  not  strange  that  an 
ancient  people  looked  upon  the  rainbow  as  the  symbol 
of  a  promise,  for  all  natural  displays  out  of  the  common 
round  are  somehow  annunciations.  On  the  way  down 
I  saw  a  pair  of  jays  scolding  a  tawny  owl,  which  re- 
taliated with  vigour.  On  the  way  back  it  grew  dusk, 
and,  as  I  descended  a  hill,  the  vale  suddenly  burst  into 
song  until  it  was  "  overflowing  with  the  sound."  The 
dunnock  struck  up  his  trivial,  shrill,  small  strain,  the 
wren  was  in  fine  voice,  robins  improvised  and  (best  of 
all)  a  throstle  on  an  ash  was  giving  a  full  service- 
loud,  brilliant,  varied,  harsh  and  dulcet  at  the  same 
time.  He  is  never  a  fine  singer — his  merit  is  his  luxuri- 
ance, copiousness,  experimentalism  and  rich  gladness. 
But  on  this  December  day  he  seemed  a  spirit,  and  in 
keenest  sympathy  with  the  human  mind.  I  thought  of 
spring,  and  his  melody  said  : — 

We  look  before  and  after, 
And  sigh  for  what  is  not. 


1  That  fine  observer,  T.  A.  Coward,  says  that  "  its  call,  if  uttered, 
is  not  so  loud,"  when  the  bird  is  flushed.  I  can  hardly  disagree 
with  him.  All  I  can  say  is  that  in  my  experience,  and  I  have  often 
flushed  the  jack-snipe  in  East  Anglia,  I  have  never  heard  him  utter 
a  sound. 


A  DORSET   DIARY  161 

I  thought  of  him  as  that  intangible  desire  for  which 
we  look  and  sigh. 

Witchell  declares  that  the  perceptible  difference  be- 
tween matins  and  evensong  in  bird  music  is  due  to  the 
operation  of  different  influences.  In  the  morning  birds 
sing  the  pleasures  of  anticipation,  in  the  evening  from 
leisure  and  the  sense  of  a  good  day's  work  accomplished. 
May  we  not  go  even  further  and  discover  in  these 
emotional  differences  a  subtle  adaptation  to  the  atmo- 
spheric conditions  ?  The  spring  song  of  the  robin  is 
glad,  the  autumn  song  subdued  and  melancholy,  and 
this  change  is  a  reality,  and  not  simply  due  to  a  hyper- 
trophied  fancy  on  our  part  which  interprets  the  robin's 
two  songs  by  the  time  of  the  year  in  which  he  sings  them. 
Nature  is  nearly  all  fitness  and  harmony ;  her  creatures 
are  a  pattern  of  adaptations.  The  voice  of  the  buzzard 
is  adapted  to  the  wildness  and  solitude  of  his  haunts  : 
why  should  not  the  morning  and  evening  songs  of  birds 
be  adapted  to  the  exultation  of  the  one  and  the  repose 
of  the  other  ?  There  may  even  be  a  physiological 
change  in  the  metabolism  of  the  body,  just  as  when 
Wordsworth  wrote  "  my  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold  " 
he  wrote  as  a  good  physicist  as  well  as  a  good  poet. 
His  body  actually  did  echo  his  emotion. 

I  noticed  that  several  blackbirds  were  perched  about 
this  thrush,  attempting  to  sing,  but  only  producing  a 
metallic  sound,  something  like  that  of  a  spoon  striking 
the  inside  of  a  cup,  but  not  quite  so  dull.  Is  it  an 
untenable  hypothesis  that  blackbirds  do  actually  lose 
their  voices  in  the  winter  ?  Here,  at  any  rate,  were 
favourable  conditions — dusk,  a  warm  day,  the  example 
of  other  birds,  their  own  attitude  and,  as  it  appeared, 
desire  to  sing.  By  the  village  church  a  barn-owl  was 
floating  silently,  low  down  almost  at  the  roots  of  the 
apple-trees  in  an  orchard. 

Nor  was  I  at  the  end  of  the  repertory  of  song,  for 
starlings  were  carrying  through  their  astonishing  per- 
formance on  the  vane  of  the  church  tower,  and  if  the 
honest  starling  is  not  pre-eminent  for  quality,  he  carries 
off  the  palm  for  variety.  I  think  he  is  a  mocker,  for  I 
have  often  heard  him  imitating  bird-notes,  especially 

11 


162       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

the  sharp  call -note  of  the  chaffinch,  the  family  calls 
of  the  tits,  a  syllable  or  two  from  the  yellow-hammer's 
reedy  epigram,  and  various  notes  from  the  repertory 
of  blackbird  and  throstle. 

He  also  imitates  his  brethren,  and  this  conscious  and 
social  mimicry  may  be  the  prelude  in  the  future  to 
deliberate  chorus  singing,  two  actual  examples  of  which, 
I  believe,  have  been  recorded.  The  crested  screamer 
of  the  pampas  of  La  Plata  (see  Hudson)  undoubtedly 
did  so  sing  in  orderly  pause  and  rhythmic  unison. 

But  like  the  jay,  and  unlike  the  marsh  warbler,  the 
starling  is  an  ambitious  amateur,  and  his  naive  echoes 
of  the  feathered  poets  are  usually  not  more  than 
plausible.  I  doubt  whether  he  imitates  other  bird-songs 
for  any  other  reason  than  to  add  to  his  inexhaustible 
larder  of  expression.  Some  observers  have  attempted 
to  disentangle  the  various  objects  from  the  sounds 
representing  them.  Such  naturalism  is  not  for  me. 
When  a  band  of  performing  starlings  is  congregated, 
I  remember  Walter  Crane's  atrocious  wood-engraving 
of  "  The  Triumph  of  Labour,"  and  at  once  the  pro- 
cession starts.  The  tabors  are  sounded,  the  cymbals 
crash,  women  kiss  their  babes  with  resounding  smacks, 
the  cartwheels  crunch  over  the  ground,  and  the  harness 
of  the  oxen  creaks  in  a  joyful  medley  of  sound. 

December  Ilth. — I  came  upon  about  thirty  redwings 
to-day,  volleying  loud  cries  in  a  large  hollyi  occasionally 
raising  their  wings  to  display  the  deep  chestnut  of  the 
flanks  and  under  wing-coverts  and  softening  their  notes 
on  taking  flight.  The  "  feltie  "  is  a  hardy  bird,  and  so 
little  of  an  epicure  in  his  diet  that  he  can  stand  our 
winters  with  the  best  of  them.  But  the  delicate  and 
fastidious  redwing,  how  is  it  that  he  does  not  migrate 
further  south  when  he  leaves  his  northern  pines,  or  for 
that  matter  leaves  us  when  the  sun  comes  our  way 
once  more  ?  He  is  the  smallest  of  the  British  thrushes, 
and  though  such  a  Northerner,  the  frailest  (he  does  feed 
on  berries  because  I  have  seen  him  do  so).  In  severe 
weather,  consequently,  it  goes  very  hard  with  him. 
Certainly,  his  ways  are  not  the  least  of  the  mysteries 
of  migration.  It  may  be  that  he  migrated  to  England 


A  DORSET  DIARY  163 

when  it  was  part  of  the  tropical  belt,  and  has  failed  so 
far  to  adapt  his  constitution  to  the  changed  conditions. 
In  the  same  way  it  seems  to  me  possible  that  the 
nightingale  fails  to  cross  his  limited  area  of  the  Home 
Counties,  because  its  borders  at  one  time  were  that  of 
the  ice  zone.  It  is  easy  to  distinguish  redwing  from 
song-thrush,  not  only  by  the  orange-chestnut  of  the 
flanks,  but  the  white  eye-stripe. 

In  a  cowyard  filled  with  muddy  water  I  had  a  good 
sight  of  a  mistle-thrush,  a  bullfinch  and  a  pair  of  grey 
wagtails.  The  bullfinch  against  the  dark  mud  and  the 
sodden  leaves  was  sumptuous,  Oriental,  a  small  ambas- 
sador to  us  islanders  from  Araby  or  the  Spice  Islands. 
A  wonderful  mean  has  been  struck  between  harmony 
and  contrast  in  the  colouring,  so  right  and  yet  so  auda- 
cious. 

December  13th. — I  saw  seven  bullfinches  to-day,  and 
these  fairy  lamps  (burly  in  form  though  they  be) 
seemed  to  light  up  the  grey  winter  day.  As  I  stood 
under  an  elm  in  the  hedgerow  a  great  cry  burst  out  of 
the  dark  air,  and  sweeping  out  of  it  with  closed  wings  came 
the  yaffle  upon  the  bark — becoming  instantly  motion- 
less, with  body  and  head  pressed  back  from  the  trunk, 
so  that  he  looked  like  a  statue  cut  out  of  jade.  Then 
he  looked  down  waggishly  at  me,  and  away  he  went 
into  the  murk  with  that  rushing,  soaring  and  dipping 
flight  of  his  like  sudden  breaths.  Still  standing,  I 
was  passed  by  two  assemblies  of  tits,  like  a  company 
of  mediaeval  mummers  going  the  rounds,  or  a  gang 
of  labourers  in  some  minute  and  perfect  state.  Climbing 
the  hill,  a  covey  of  partridges  shot  away  from  me  with 
rapid  wing-beats,  and  a  moment  later  an  immense 
flock  of  gulls  and  rooks  came  up  the  sky  from  the 
pastures  and  began  wheeling  in  and  out,  backwards 
and  forwards  through  each  other's  ranks.  It  was  a 
pied  cloud  drifting  the  lower  ether.  In  a  desolate  part 
of  the  hills  I  encountered  a  single  marsh-tit,  thus  for 
once  in  a  way  justifying  his  reputation  as  a  wanderer 
in  solitary  places.  Descending  into  the  valley  again, 
I  made  out  siskins  (a  beautiful  composite  of  yellow, 
black,  grey,  green  and  white  even  in  the  dulled  winter 


164      BIRDS   OF   THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

dress)  perched  on  the  branch  of  a  small  ash  among  a 
flock  of  forty  or  so  chaffinches,  and  not  six  yards  from 
where  I  crouched.  It  is  not  often  that  the  siskin's 
roof  is  the  sky,  his  bars  the  wide  horizon,  his  floor 
the  earth,  and  his  box  of  seeds  the  verdure  thereof, 
rot  often  that  (like  the  great  tit)  he  associates  with 
chaffinches — tits,  goldcrests  and  redpoles  being  his  usual 
companions. 

December  15th. — The  day  was  the  darkest  yet  for 
my  farewell  ramble.  I  watched  a  biggish  bird  on  an 
elm  darting  up  and  down  from  branch  to  branch, 
wagging  his  head,  scuffling  to  and  fro  in  a  fever  of 
restlessness,  and  uttering  an  extraordinary  cry  like  that 
of  a  dog  on  a  chain — half  bark,  half  whine.  Natur- 
ally, this  was  exciting,  and  I  stalked  this  oddity  as  well 
as  I  could,  now  that  the  land  is  all  bog.  Then,  before 
I  could  get  very  close,  away  he  flew,  displaying  the 
white  rump  and  discharging  the  characteristic  scream 
of  the  jay.  But  I  have  never  heard  the  jay  imitating 
a  yard -dog  before,  nor  seen  any  account  of  it  in  a 
natural  history  volume.  Was  he  actually  mocking  a 
dog  he  had  heard  ?  Montagu  in  his  Dictionary  of  Birds 
says  the  jay  will  at  intervals  introduce  into  its  spring 
song  "  the  bleatings  of  a  Lamb,  mewing  of  a  Cat,  the 
note  of  a  Kite  or  Buzzard,  hooting  of  an  Owl,  and  even 
the  neighing  of  a  Horse." 

Mimicry,  indeed,  plays  a  much  larger  part  in  bird- 
life  than  is  supposed.  In  captivity,  when  the  poor  things 
have  little  else  to  do,  most  birds  imitate  the  sounds 
they  hear  about  them,  and  in  London  I  have  heard  a 
song  thrush  imitate  the  loud  yell  of  a  parrot  in  a 
house  near  his  evening  perch  to  perfection.  There  are 
numerous  examples  of  blackbirds  picking  up  the  bar  of 
some  popular  song,  and  the  young  of  the  finer  singers 
learn  their  parents'  melodies  by  intelligent  mimicry, 
grafted  on  to  fundamental  inheritance.  Witchell  gives 
many  examples  (a  trifle  stretched,  it  is  true)  of  birds 
imitating  elemental  sounds — onomatopoeia  in  fact — the 
belted  kingfisher  a  mill-dam,  owls  the  moaning  of  wind 
in  hollow  trees,  the  American  marsh- wren  the  air-bubbles 
of  the  marsh,  and  other  birds  the  rippling  of  streams. 


A  DORSET  DIARY  165 

I  have  heard  a  starling  imitate  the  pee  wit  of  the  lap- 
wing, and  it  is  recorded  of  another  starling  that  he 
used  to  imitate  the  chapel-bell,  swinging  his  body  to 
and  fro  in  the  manner  of  the  bell's  pendulum  the 
while.  It  is  perhaps  too  soon  to  state  definitely  (as 
Witchell  does)  that  songs  and  cries  are  modulated  to 
resemble  sounds  with  which  the  birds  are  familiar,  but 
it  is  a  striking  fact  that  the  voices  of  birds  are  as 
much  in  harmony  with  the  sounds  of  their  neighbour- 
hood as  their  colours  with  those  of  their  surroundings, 
and  this  may  be  at  any  rate  partly  due  to  conscious 
mimicry.  I  profess  myself  willing  to  believe  anything 
after  reading  Henry  Drummond's  account  in  Tropical 
Africa  of  an  insect  instinctively  imitating  a  bird 
dropping.  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  sure — nature's 
sound  artistic  taste  is  at  the  back  of  it  all. 

One  thing  the  vocal  imitations  of  birds  do  prove — 
their  acute  awareness  and  intelligent  appreciation  of 
what  goes  on  around  them  on  the  one  hand  and  their 
ingrained  social  sensibilities  on  the  other.  The  following 
is  R.  W.  Schufeldt's  description  of  an  American  mocking- 
bird (Mimus  poliglottus) : — 

Clearly  and  with  the  greatest  possible  accuracy  and  rapidity, 
and  with  a  mellow  strength  even  exceeding  the  originals,  he 
utters  the  notes  and  calls  of  twenty  or  more  birds  in  succes- 
sion, ranging  all  the  way  from  the  plaintive  air  of  the  blue- 
bird to  the  harsh,  discordant  cries  of  jays,  sparrow-hawks, 
and  even  with  equal  compass  the  vociferations  of  the  eagle. 
Catching  breath,  and  tossing  himself  lightly  into  the  air  above 
his  perch,  he  alarms  the  entire  feathered  community  assembled 
by  his  imitating  the  cries  of  a  birdling  seized  by  a  hawk ; 
this  is  followed,  perhaps,  by  the  crowing  of  a  cock  or  the 
vociferous  note  of  the  whippoorwill,  and  the  very  incongruity 
appears  to  put  his  feathered  listeners  to  shame  at  the  hoax. 

The  passage  surely  gathers  up  a  bundle  of  social  reali- 
zations— curiosity,  perception,  humour,  pride,  memory, 
aesthetic  pleasure  and  conscious  make-believe  elaborated 
into  deliberate  social  drama.  The  whole  scene  is  bathed 
in  a  consciousness  of  which  the  simpler  mimetic  faculty 
is  the  raw  material.  A  performance  like  this  is  to  the 
first  lispings  of  the  young  bird  conning  his  parent's 


166      BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

song  what  Burbidge,  Garrick  and  Mrs.  Siddons  are  to 
the  rustic  mime  capering  about  in  a  country  manor 
house  with  a  bear's  head  over  his  own. 

I  may  at  any  rate  add  to  Montague's  description  of 
the  vocal  accomplishments  of  the  jay  "  the  bark  and 
whine  of  a  Dog,"  and  remember  it  for  an  antiquarian 
curiosity  when  those  "  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the 
ways  of  Nature,"  as  that  good  scholar  of  nature, 
Professor  Newton,  says,  have  won  their  gallant  war 
and  brought  the  last  effervescent  jay  in  his  cobalt  blue, 
cinnamon,  jetty  black  and  snow  white  livery  down 
dead  at  their  feet. 

Returning  home  I  heard  the  sound  that  to  me  is  the 
most  sovereign  of  all  the  repertory  of  our  larger 
English  birds — the  inexpressibly  joyous,  clear,  wild, 
free  and  intense  laugh  of  the  yaffle.  Upon  a  memory 
so  bright  and  void  of  care  it  is  well  to  close. 


CHAPTER    VII 
A    VILLAGE    IN    HAMPSHIRE 


DR.  McTAGGART,  in  an  essay  on  immortality,  main- 
tained that  the  mind  is  a  kind  of  natural  sieve. 
When  we  set  out  from  the  terminus  of  this  world  at 
the  end  of  our  lives,  we  retain  or  ought  to  retain  as  our 
luggage  only  the  true  essentials  of  our  individual  know- 
ledge and  experience.  They  are  our  ticket  as  well  as 
our  luggage,  and  will  carry  us  into  a  country  of  new 
knowledge  and  new  experience  just  so  far  as  our  book- 
ing allows.  Not  being  the  authority  on  future  worlds, 
which  many  others  claim  to  be  nowadays,  I  do  not 
pretend  to  apply  the  simile  to  any  other  worlds  but 
this  one,  and  more  narrowly  in  this  chapter  to  that 
particular  North  Hampshire  village  which  I  have  visited 
many  times  in  spring,  summer  and  autumn. 

I  remember  a  casual  remark  of  Mr.  Hudson's  to  the 
effect  that  unless  birds  are  seen  emotionally,  the  mental 
image  of  them  cannot  be  retained.  Thus,  when  we 
see  birds  at  their  very  best,  our  emotions  respond  to 
them  the  more  eagerly,  and  the  image  we  carry  away 
is  the  more  vividly  stamped.  These  investments  of  the 
backward-looking  mind  among  the  most  solid  securities 
— solid  because  they  are  the  most  enduring,  and  the 
most  enduring  because  certain  selected  circumstances 
have  been  unusually  favourable  to  them — remain  as 
sound  and  bright  as  heretofore,  as  others  have  been 
(to  mix  metaphors)  moulted  off.  I  shall  write  this 
chapter,  then,  upon  the  theme  of  "  birds  at  their  best." 

1  Birds,  of  course,  are  usually  at  their  best — physiological  as 
well  as  mental  and  aesthetic — in  the  spring,  with  its  nuptial  flights 
and  dances,  its  devotion  and  parental  care,  and  so  on.  But  I  am 
taking  a  more  personal  point  of  view. 

167 


168       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

That  is  no  reflection  on  the  country.  The  part  of 
Hampshire  where  my  village  lies  is  graced  with  a  rich 
fertility,  a  plumpness  comfortable  without  distinction. 
It  shows  its  second  best  in  the  flowers  and  its  third  in 
the  hangars  or  ranges  of  hills  whose  slopes  are  thickly 
plumed  with  woods  (mostly  beech)  and  extend  for  miles, 
dropping  gently  down  at  intervals  into  the  broad  valleys 
lavishly  spread  with  crops,  pastures,  plantations  and 
barbed  wire.  But  even  these  hangars  are  a  trifle 
monotonous  unless  one  can  look  down  on  a  clear  day  from 
a  height  upon  the  autumnal  foliage,  quilted  with  patches 
of  red,  gold,  russet,  sage  green  of  a  clump  of  conifers, 
yellow,  purple  at  a  distance,  and  brown,  like  a  dome  of 
many-coloured  glass  staining  the  wide,  uniform  heavens. 

My  acquaintance  with  flowers  is  unhappily  not  apace 
with  my  friendship  for  them,  for  it  is  my  wild  ambition 
to  know  every  species  of  British  plant  and  animal  from 
diatom  and  infusorian  upwards — the  desire  of  the  moth 
for  the  star.  But  even  I  can  tell  that  the  soils  of 
Hampshire  have  a  particular  kindness  for  plants,  and 
the  luxuriance  of  the  summer  and  autumn  hedges  is 
quite  tropical,  especially  that  of  the  plume-flowered 
Traveller's  Joy  (named  by  old  Gerarde),  whose  powerful 
runners  surge  over  their  tops,  mingled  among  the 
delicate  patterns  and  designs  of  the  purple  tufted  vetch, 
with  woodbine,  honeysuckle,  the  greenish  blossoms  of 
white  briony  and  the  scarlet  grapes  of  the  black, 
dessert  for  autumn  birds — which,  luckily  for  them,  we 
cannot  eat — some  of  whose  leaves  are  green  and  others 
a  rich  copper.  Hemp  agrimony  also  telescopes  the 
seasons  in  this  way  with  its  clusters  of  crimson  buds 
and  misty  flowers  together,  and  for  a  mingling  of  colours 
in  the  shadows  and  borders  of  the  hedges  there  are 
hemp-nettle  with  its  whorls  of  pink  flowers,  the  orange 
berries  of  wake  robin,  the  greenish-yellow  spikes  of 
wood  sage,  red  and  white  campion,  forget-me-not,  woody 
nightshade,  purple  wood  betony,  slender  agrimony  (a 
great  favourite  of  mine),  the  thin  candelabra  of  the 
once  sacred  lilac  vervain,  smooth,  rosy  centaury  (which 
shuts  at  noon  and  points  its  fingers  to  the  sky),  yellow 
bedstraw,  mallow  as  delicate  as  the  wild  rose,  the 


A  VILLAGE   IN  HAMPSHIRE          169 

reddish  spikes  of  sorrel,  scabious — and  many  others, 
a  catalogue  as  endless  as  that  of  the  Catholic  saints. 

The  fields,  too,  have  their  pennies  out  of  the  pocket 
of  millionaire  nature.  Purple  loosestrife  with  pennons 
that  look  like  foxglove  at  a  distance  is  very  abundant 
in  damp  places,  dominating  the  meadow-sweet,  the 
flesh-coloured  flowers  of  gipsy-wort  and  the  glossy  leaves, 
handsome,  single,  yellow  flowers  and  graceful,  weeping 
stems  of  herb  twopence  or  penny-wort,  its  humbler 
cousin,  and  like  the  creeping  jenny  of  gardens.  On 
the  edges  both  of  grass  and  cornfields  the  roseate  rest- 
harrow  makes  quite  a  bushy  undergrowth,  and  beside 
it  stands  the  bold  burdock  with  its  wavy  leaves,  hooked 
scales  and  decorative  purple  heads,  while  the  pimpernel 
in  the  thinner  patches  of  the  corn  is  so  plentiful  as  to 
stain  the  ground  with  a  reddish  dye,  the  masses  of 
crimson  and  lilac  majoram  running  yet  other  hues  into 
the  quilt.  In  an  upland  pasture,  strewn  with  the 
purplish-green  leaves  and  pink  flowers  of  red  bartsia, 
I  found  two  toadflaxes  flowering  side  by  side,  the 
commoner  yellow  with  straight  spurs  in  the  hedge  and 
the  round-leaved  (whose  spurs  are  curled)  with  single 
flowers  growing  out  of  each  axil.  And  not  less  beautiful, 
if  coarser  in  effect,  are  the  vivid,  scattered  flares  of  the 
ragwort,  dimming  the  pale,  gold  buttons  of  the  aromatic 
tansy  at  its  elbow. 

But  the  finer  flowers  grow  on  the  chalk  slopes  among 
the  thyme  and  eyebright,  splashed  with  the  purest  of 
yellows.  Here  the  little  milk  wort,  azure,  but  some- 
times pink  and  sometimes  white,  and  looking  double- 
flowered  owing  to  the  long  petal-like  sepals  being 
coloured  like  the  flower,  is  quite  common,  as  is  vipers 
bugloss  over  small  areas  with  its  cobalt  hues,  varied 
here  and  there  with  flowers  of  a  bright  rose.  The  three 
gentians  grew  in  company  here  like  the  Three  Graces, 
gentianella  at  the  end  of  an  attenuated  stalk  a  few 
inches  high,  the  field  gentian  and  the  autumnal  gentian, 
whose  flower  is  of  a  lighter  purple.  Among  his  helle- 
bores, ladies'  tresses,  etc.,  which  Gilbert  White  men- 
tions as  growing  upon  Selborne  Common  (some  of  which 
extend  their  range  to  these  slopes),  is  the  curious  per- 


170       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

foliate  yellow  wort  with  erect  stem,  thrust  through 
the  glaucous,  up-curled  leaves. 

But  flowers  are  birds  and  butterflies  that  cannot  fly. 
Nature  cannot  be  at  her  best  without  the  birds,  and 
the  most  splendid  and  moving  portraits  of  her  in  verse 
and  prose  are  lacking,  unless  they  take  account  of  the 
whole  rather  than  the  less  animate  piece.  I  have 
wandered  in  places  where  nature,  unlike  the  young 
man  in  the  Scriptures,  seemed  to  give  all  that  she  had. 
But  all  she  did  not  give,  for  birds  were  few — rari  nantes 
in  gurgite  vasto — and  their  absence  crippled  her  beauty. 

I  remember  walking  along  some  water-meadows  one 
day  near  my  village,  "  enamelled  o'er "  with  a  press 
of  flowers  dropped  like  rain  out  of  nature's  seed-box, 
and  finding  it  empty  of  voice  and  flying  shape.  With- 
out the  birds,  it  was  a  melancholy  still  life  picture  ;  or 
a  house  with  bright  curtains  in  the  open  windows, 
cushions  in  the  chairs,  table  laid  and  door  set  wide, 
inviting  dwellers  that  come  not ;  or  the  blue  sky  in 
the  Ancient  Mariner,  a  sky  wherein  the  stars  do  not 
enter  "  as  lords  that  are  certainly  expected."  For  the 
birds  are  nature's  articulation,  and  without  them  she 
is  a  sleeping  princess,  a  tree  in  winter,  fine  clothes  in 
a  window,  with  no  fair  body  to  wear  them.  What  rhythm 
is  to  the  poet,  so  birds  to  nature. 

I  remember  another  occasion  one  early  spring  morn- 
ing about  half-past  five  when  I  was  awakened  to  the 
first  feathered  chorus  I  had  heard  that  year.  Chaffinch, 
blackbird,  throstle,  blue  and  great  tits,  wren,  robin  and 
dunnock  could  be  disentangled  from  these  wild  matins 
to  the  morning  of  the  year.  But  it  was  idle  thus 
splitting  and  labelling  the  whole — a  festival,  turning 
the  world  into  a  dew-drop  of  song  : — 

Glorious  the  sun  in  mid  career  ; 
Glorious  th'  assembled  fires  appear ; 

Glorious  the  comet's  train : 
Glorious  the  trumpet  and  alarm  ; 
Glorious  the  Almighty's  stretched-out  arm  ; 

Glorious  th'  enraptured  main. 

There  was  nature  at  her  best,  and  now  for  birds  at 
theirs. 


A  VILLAGE  IN  HAMPSHIRE  171 

As  with  landscape,  so  it  is  with  individual  trees,  in- 
dependently of  what  beauty  of  shape,  colour  or  orna- 
ment they  may  possess.  There  was  a  small  juniper 
in  the  churchyard  where  I  spent  many  hours.  The 
church  was  indifferent,  but  the  churchyard  with  its 
noble  yews  (the  pride  of  so  many  Hampshire  churches), 
its  cedar,  cypresses  and  soft  turf  had  a  real  character 
and  peace  of  its  own,  and  it  was  a  pleasant  thing  to 
look  out  from  it  away  to  the  clear,  intense  purple  of 
the  downs,  foreboding  storm.  In  this  juniper  a  pair 
of  linnets  had  built  their  nest,  and  one  day  I  found  it 
quite  thronged  with  the  minute,  busy,  dusky  forms  of 
goldcrests,  whose  fever  of  restlessness  relieved,  without 
marring,  the  calm  of  the  place.  The  tree  was  alive 
with  them,  and  that  common  phrase  must  squeeze  all 
its  juice  out  to  express  the  sudden  grace  which  fulfilled 
that  common  tree,  as  a  husbandman  fulfills  the  earth.1 

Swallows,  when  they  begin  to  bustle  into  camp  in 
September  for  their  long  journey  undergo  a  physio- 
logical change  which  drags  them  out  of  routine.  The 
cries  and  songs  of  the  little  adventurers — palmers  for 
the  Holy  Land  (whither  some  of  them  actually  go), 
that  have  sung  their  farewells  and  travelled  out  their 
courses  so  many  thousand  years  before  palmers  were 
and  so  many  autumns  since  their  voyagings  were  done — 
mark  the  first  wrinkles  in  the  year.  The  young  are 
being  fed  in  the  air,  and  here  there  is  no  antagonism 
between  the  migratory  and  the  domestic  instincts. 

One  day  I  witnessed  the  extraordinary  spectacle  of 
a  creeper  going  back  for  a  yard  on  his  tracks  !  Dean 
Inge  declares,  with  sublime  untruth,  that  "  the  normal 
condition  of  every  species  is  not  progress  but  stationari- 
ness,"  but  I  have  been  an  eye-witness  of  a  tree-creeper 
revolution,  as  wonderful  in  its  way  to  all  who  know 
their  creeper  as  the  resurrections  of  the  human  spirit 
from  calamity  and  disintegration.2 

1  They  pair  in  January,  but  remain  in  flocks  for  some  time. 
The  male  displays  before  the  female   by  running  along  a  branch 
with  drooped  wings  and  fanned  tail. 

2  Once   I   actually  saw  a  creeper  go  half  demented,  whirling 
round  and  round  a  tree-bole  in  an  ague  of  unrest.     I  should  have 
been  hardly  more  surprised  if  the  tree  had  taken  to  its  heels. 


172       BIRDS   OF    THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

Another  example.  There  was  only  one  martin's  nest 
in  the  village,  but  so  far  as  I  could  make  out  there 
were  three  martins  to  it.  One  day  I  found  that  the 
sparrows  had  turned  them  out  and  usurped  the  nest. 
But  lo  !  two  days  later  the  martins  were  back  again 
at  their  old  nest,  all  three  of  them  (a  female  and  two 
males,  as  I  guessed,  for  one  of  them  remained  in 
the  nest  making  it  smooth  and  shipshape  with  her 
chin  after  the  untidy  sparrows,  and  the  other  two 
hovered  fussily  and  amicably  about  her),  and  held 
possession  without  any  further  interference.  There  is 
genuine  alchemy  in  this  individual  variability  and 
unaccountableness  of  living  creatures. 

Once  when  I  was  in  Porlock,  on  the  Devonshire 
border,  I  saw  a  parent  martin,  instead  of  darting  about 
for  insects  in  the  wavering,  butterfly  or  rather  bat-like 
flight  of  this  species,  fly  straight  from  the  nest  and 
perch  upon  the  thatch  of  a  cottage,  dipping  her  snub 
bill  down  upon  it  repeatedly  and  then  fly  back  to  the 
nest  with  her  booty.  This  she  did  again  and  again, 
and  it  was  an  economical  departure  from  custom.  In 
the  evening  the  sky  was  occupied  in  three  different 
layers,  screaming  swifts  in  the  upper  ether,  twittering 
swallows  in  the  middle,  and  stuttering  martins  in  the 
lower,  no  higher  than  the  cottage  chimneys,  and  it  was 
very  natural  for  an  individual  of  the  species  in  the 
lowest  stratum  and  with  the  weakest  flight  to  hit  upon 
a  new  and  accessible  method  of  procuring  food. 

The  chiff-chaff  is  the  least  beautiful  and  interest- 
ing of  his  congeners,  wood-wren  and  willow-wren — well 
called  the  leaf- warblers — and  yet  possesses  a  special 
quality  in  which  they  must  yield  him  precedence.  For 
he  is  the  first  of  the  migrants  to  arrive,  sometimes  in 
blizzards,  often  at  the  heels  of  a  withering  east  wind. 
Thus  he  is  welcome  indeed  for  his  courage  and  his 
tidings,  as  he  works  at  his  minute  elfin  forge  of  two 
notes,  hammering  the  new  year  into  its  green  shape. 
For  little  Vulcan  is  Mercury  too,  the  winged  messenger 
of  life,  freshness  and  renewal.  His  form  and  song  are 
familiar  to  all  who  have  ears,  and  so  we  regard  them  not. 
But  violet  and  chiff-chaff  are  more  important  than  Bank 


A  VILLAGE  IN  HAMPSHIRE          173 

Rates  and  Stock  Exchanges,  for  these  things  pass  and 
dissolve  in  their  own  transitory  ugliness,  while  bird  and 
flower  announce  and  bring  the  mighty  changes  of  a 
planetary  system.  Like  a  debutante,  he  is  at  his  best 
on  his  first  appearance,  and  cuckoo,  willow-wren,  wheat- 
ear  and  blackcap  are  also  near  the  top  of  the  poll  in 
this  respect. 

But  the  cuckoo's  analogy  is  the  closest,  for  he,  too, 
has  but  two  strings  to  his  bow,  and  as  the  year  matures, 
so  fade  the  pristine  charms  of  their  voices,  until  a  new 
year  restores  them.  In  1919,  I  heard  the  cuckoo's 
"  diminished  third "  for  the  first  time  on  April  21st, 
nine  days  after  the  first  chiff-chaff,  clear,  full,  pellucid 
in  the  bright,  cold  air.  I  was  lying  in  a  small  wood, 
itself  writing  the  first  notes  of  the  old  song — "  Sumer 
is  icumen  in,"  when  the  cuckoo  chimed  in.  "  The 
cuckoo  is  hoarse  " — here  might  be  a  saying  signifying 
staleness,  disillusion,  age  and  decay  when  a  man's  life 
has  turned  brown.  A  few  days  later  I  was  sitting  in  the 
evening  under  an  elm  when  the  cuckoo  came  to  perch 
on  it.  He  hallowed  there  for  a  bit,  and  then  set  out 
again  languidly  1  chasing  his  mate,  who  dully  awaited  his 
attentions  on  another  tree  some  distance  away.  You 
hear  but  you  do  not  see  the  cuckoo  at  his  best.  A  pair  of 
nightjars  used  to  haunt  the  same  ferny  pasture  towards 
dusk,  crouching  lengthwise  on  a  branch,  and  reeling  or  fly- 
ing after  one  another  like  giant  moths  with  "silent,  search- 
ing flight  "  and  low  call — cou-ee,  cou-ee.  Poor  cuckoos, 
poor  Thomson  to  be  a  contemporary  of  Collins  ! 

The  willow-wren  is  rarely  other  than  at  his  best, 
and  if  there  is  anything  in  transmigration,  I  shall  put 
in  for  the  willow-wren,  so  that  I  may  listen  to  my  own 
strains  from  morn  to  eve.  A  few  minutes  after  the 
cuckoo,  I  heard  a  strain  of  about  a  dozen  notes  in  the 
thick  undergrowth  of  this  wood,  some  fifteen  yards 
away  from  me.  It  was  the  first  blackcap  of  the  season 
(the  garden  garbler  arrives  several  days  later),  and  a 
moment  afterwards  I  saw  the  bird  himself,  creeping 
up  and  down  and  to  and  fro  among  the  interlaced  twigs 

1  Though  the  cuckoo,  whose  physiological  state  is  all  askew — 
he  suffers  from  dyspepsia — is  the  most  incontinent  of  birds. 


174       BIRDS   OF    THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

of  a  bramble,  and  ever  and  anon  his  wild  and  brilliant 
song  came  leaping  out  of  his  throat.  A  foot  or  two  away 
sat  a  bullfinch,  bulky  form  and  sedentary  pose  of  Black- 
pate  No.  2  giving  the  full  romance  to  Blackpate  No.  1. 
It  is  nearly  always  hear  rather  than  see  with  the  black- 
cap, especially  when  tree  and  bush  are  full-gowned  in 
green,  for,  with  the  exception  of  the  grasshopper  warbler 
and  hawfinch,  no  bird  known  to  me  is  more  difficult 
to  watch,  partly  because  of  his  extreme  shyness,  partly 
because  he  usually  sings  in  the  middle  of  a  thick  bush, 
which,  rather  than  the  bird,  breaks  into  song,  and 
partly  because  he  becomes  silent  and  slips  away  when 
approached.  Here,  then,  in  this  "  rathe "  wood  were 
the  special  conditions  I  was  always  seeking  and  so  rarely 
finding  in  the  shape  I  expected.  The  blackcap's  song 
has  a  brief  main  figure,  a  central  design,  loud,  full, 
ringing,  pure,  and  though  delivered  with  great  rapidity 
and  excitement,  each  note  sharply  articulated.  Some 
of  the  notes  are  very  high  and  clear,  like  the  shape  of 
a  jagged  mountain  on  a  bright,  cold  day.  But  the 
burden,  so  to  speak,  is  all  decorated  and  spangled  with 
"  a  great  variety  of  soft  and  gentle  modulations,"  as 
Gilbert  White  says  in  his  beautiful  description,  and 
some  of  the  notes  in  the  "  inward  melody "  have  the 
sweetness  and  mellowness  of  a  very  different  poet— 
the  blackbird.  There  are  no  trills  in  the  song,  and  the 
high-pitched  quavering  of  a  robin  singing  hard  by  afforded 
as  strong  a  contrast  in  sound  as  did  the  bullfinch  in 
shape.  Now,  my  blackcap,  having  but  just  arrived, 
left  out  the  inward  modulations,  to  be  acquired  when 
he  is  more  at  home.  Yet  it  is  this  image  of  the 
blackcap  I  retain  above  all  others,  singing  and  darting 
to  and  fro  on  a  chilly  April  day  in  the  lap  of  a  bramble, 
flanked  by  silent  bullfinch  and  robin  with  his  glittering 
sprays  of  sound. 

It  is  an  odd  thing  to  record  fine  things  of  the  spotted 
fly-catcher,  whose  disposition  is  generally  assumed  to 
be  as  drab  as  his  colour — a  mediocre,  respectable, 
depressed  little  bird,  sitting  hunched  on  a  fence  or  a 
gatepost,  earning  his  commonplace  living.  I  have 
found  him  otherwise,  though  a  certain  grand  occasion 


A  VILLAGE   IN  HAMPSHIRE          175 

was  none  of  his  doing.  First  of  all,  he  had  built  a 
charming  nest  of  lichen  and  slender  grass  stems  in  the 
rose-bowered  trellis  of  a  cottage  wall  three  doors  from 
where  I  was  staying,  and  had  laid  therein  six  eggs, 
dyed  a  faint  blue-green  over  a  white  ground  colour, 
all  dusted  with  rusty  brown  spots.  The  parent  birds 
were  as  bold  as  brass,  for  they  had  found  a  more  subtle 
way  than  concealing  the  nest — advertising  it.  They 
remembered  that  politic  saw  of  Blake's — "  Always  be 
ready  to  speak  your  mind,  and  a  base  man  will  avoid 
you."  No  warbler  again  is  so  agile  on  the  wing,  and 
his  swift  turns  and  dashes  in  the  air  when  hawking  flies 
remind  me  of  the  swallow.  And  their  coquetries  on 
the  wing !  They  dart  simultaneously  from  opposite 
perches,  meet  half-way  and  flutter  breast  to  breast, 
and  then  after  some  rapid  pirouettings  and  a  swift, 
wheeling  love-chase  return  to  their  perches. 

But  I  have  not  yet  done  with  the  redemption  of  the 
fly-catcher.  One  day  I  saw  a  fly-catcher  sitting  motion- 
less at  the  extreme  tip  of  a  dead  branch  at  the  top  of 
a  tall  decayed  larch,  the  white  breast  thrown  full  out 
into  the  beams  of  the  sun.  The  effect  was  wonderful 
beyond  any  tale  of  it,  for  the  bird  seemed  like  a  globe 
of  dew,  suffused  with  light.  Here  was  an  aged  and 
dying  tree  surrendering  its  soul  to  heaven  in  a  ball  of 
liquid  light,  suspended  upon  its  topmost  and  deadest 
twig.  Then,  moving  position,  I  found  that  the  ash- 
brown  of  the  back  had  melted  into  a  fragile,  pearly  grey, 
as  though  it  were  the  palest  shadow  of  the  bird's  iri- 
descent breast.  It  was  a  baptism  of  light. 

It  is  a  fine  sight  in  autumn  to  watch  a  flight  of 
mistle-thrushes  out  of  a  tall  tree,  clamorously  taking 
the  air  with  the  bold  careless  sweep  so  characteristic 
of  the  bird's  forcible,  challenging  temper,  vehement 
song  and  strong  markings  on  the  breast.  Well  is  he 
named  storm-cock !  I  remember  finding  a  mistle- 
thrush's  nest  in  early  April  in  a  clump  of  firs  not  five 
yards  away  from  the  main  road-hogs'  highway.  As 
usual,  the  nest,  with  its  three  layers  of  dry  grass,  mud, 
and  a  surface  covering  of  lichen,  moss,  and  again  grass, 
was  very  conspicuous,  and  as  I  stood  looking  up  a  young 


176        BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

one  flew  down  into  the  road.  I  bent  down  to  put  it  out 
of  harm's  way,  and  its  yells  at  me  at  once  brought 
its  parents  to  within  a  couple  of  yards  of  my  head, 
tails  expanded,  feathers  ruffled  and  darting  within  a 
foot  of  my  face.  The  storm-cock  rollicks  through  life 
like  the  king-bird  of  America,  singing  his  "the  devil 
take  her."  * 

A  mile  from  the  village  there  is  a  large  flag  and  reed 
grown  pond,  with  an  island  in  the  middle,  clustered 
with  many  creeping  water-plants  on  the  marshy  banks, 
and  well  guarded  not  only  by  an  outer  fortification  of 
dense  trees,  but  an  inner  fringe  of  garlic.  The  most  beau- 
tiful lake  in  the  world  is  but  a  hole  with  water  in  it  without 
its  pulse,  its  local  genius  and  informing  spirit — the  water- 
fowl, and  I  used  to  spend  long  periods  by  this  pond  watch- 
ing the  teal,  mallard,  etc.,  and  hearing  their  greetings, 
discussions  and  ejaculations — the  crek  crek  of  the  water- 
hen,  like  the  flapping  of  disturbed  water  against  the 
reeds,  and  the  peculiar  cry  of  the  coot,  something 
between  a  honk  and  a  cluck,  which  gives  a  combina- 
tion of  wildness  with  peace  and  serenity  to  its  haunts. 
The  coot  is  usually  called  a  plain  bird,  but  if  the  beams 
of  the  sun  alight  on  it,  the  head  and  neck  shine  out  a 
glossy  blue-black,  the  white  frontal  shield  gleams  in 
the  rays,  and  the  soft  slate-grey  of  the  back  tempers 
the  whole.  But  even  without  the  sun's  aid,  this  shield, 
accentuating  the  darkness  of  the  bird's  plumage,  like 
a  flash  of  lightning  in  a  black  sky,  has  a  fine  effect.  It 
looks  like  a  fleck  of  sunlight  on  the  waters,  and  at  the 
same  time  protects  the  bird  through  its  likeness  to  the 
dirty  white  tops  of  the  dead  reeds.  The  likeness  is 
helped  by  the  reflection  which  gives  length.  The  white 
webs  in  the  upright  tail  feathers  of  the  water-hen  serve 

1  The  racket  mistle-thriishes  make  in  love-rivalry  is  far  louder 
than  that  of  castanets  at  the  same  distance.  I  have  seen  them 
fighting  for  love  as  early  as  January  5th,  and  as  soon  as  two  males 
are  locked  in  combat,  off  goes  the  hen,  and  instantly  they  leave 
their  broil  and  take  after  her,  dividing  their  inexhaustible  energies 
between  the  love  and  the  war-cry,  the  chase  of  passion  and  fury, 
the  advance  of  attraction  and  repulsion,  brandishing  swords  and 
roses,  so  to  speak,  alternatively  for  hours  at  a  time. 


A  VILLAGE  IN  HAMPSHIRE          177 

the  same  purpose.  Nature's  inspired  taste  abhors  an  un- 
broken surface,  a  uniformity  of  colour  without  relief  to 
give  it  character  and  tone.  The  orange  bills  of  swan  and 
blackbird,  the  tongue  of  flame  along  the  crown  of  the 
goldcrest,  the  daw's  grey  nape,  even  the  narrow  white 
transverse  bar  across  the  sparrow's  wing,  are  all  artistic 
devices  in  the  same  notation.  Nature  is  sometimes 
beautiful  for  beauty's  sake  alone,  but  usually  wherever 
you  see  ornament  in  her  kingdom  you  will  find  use, 
and  whenever  a  thing  serves  a  need,  it  is  yet  beautiful 
in  itself. 

I  had  an  adventure  with  one  bird  which  I  saw  at 
its  best  and  left  at  its  worst.  It  was  a  hawfinch  (not 
uncommon  in  these  parts),  and  I  was  responsible  for 
its  death  in  this  manner.  The  people  who  lived  next 
door  to  where  I  was  staying  kept  cage  birds  in  some 
numbers,  and  the  man  in  his  spare  time  was  a  bird- 
catcher.  The  pair  were  pious  folks  and  regular  church- 
goers, and  having  paid  their  respects  to  the  Head 
Gaoler  of  the  Universe  on  a  Sunday  morning,  they 
used  to  return,  and,  uplifted  with  their  interview,  pre- 
sent their  charges  with  lumps  of  sugar.  Among  these 
feathered  convicts — greenfinches,  linnets  and  bullfinches 
— was  a  young  hawfinch,  and  the  sight  of  this  wildest, 
shyest  and  wariest  of  English  birds  in  confinement 
made  me  so  uneasy  that  one  late  afternoon  I  bought 
it  and  a  pair  of  bullfinches  into  the  bargain,  intending 
to  let  them  out  in  the  woods  next  morning.  I  set  the 
bird  on  my  table  to  get  a  long  and  full  view  of  its  fine 
plumage.  I  judged  the  bird  was  in  its  second  year, 
but  it  possessed  the  adult  plumage,  vinaceous  chestnut 
on  breast  and  belly,  mixed  with  chestnut  orange  on  the 
head,  an  ashy  nape,  brown  back,  and  black  on  the  lower 
wings  and  throat.  It  was  a  fine  specimen,  its  burly 
form  making  the  bullfinches  look  quite  delicate  in  shape, 
its  huge,  conical  bill  protruding  from  a  massive  head 
and  a  very  handsome  pelt  to  match  its  presence.  I 
was  admiring  it  without  compunction  when  I  made 
the  discovery  that  it  was  petrified  with  terror.  It  stood 
bolt  upright  on  its  perch,  rigid  and  motionless,  like 
an  ornament  of  coloured  wood,  except  for  the  quick 

12 


178      BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

rolling  and  shifting  of  the  eyes.  The  feathers  of  the 
crown  were  slightly  raised  as  the  hair  stands  upon  a 
dog's  rump  or  a  human  head  for  fear  of  "  some  fearful 
fiend."  But  the  eyes  were  the  most  eloquent,  terrified, 
but  with  a  certain  pride  in  them.  I  took  the  bird  out 
forthwith  with  the  agitated  little  bullfinches  and  let 
them  go,  and  the  next  day  I  found  the  hawfinch  lying 
dead,  a  few  yards  from  where  I  had  taken  it  out  of  the 
cage.  Though  not  bred  in  captivity,  it  was  presumably 
too  unused  to  finding  its  own  food.  I  do  not  regret  it, 
for  I  would  rather  have  killed  the  bird  with  my  own 
hands  than  deciphered  that  contest  of  dignity  with  terror, 
without  restoring  it  to  a  liberty  at  the  expense  of  life. 
For  eyes  glazed  with  death  are  better  than  alight 
with  such  stress.  Many  birds,  of  course,  acquiesce 
in  their  captivity,  but  they  do  so  at  the  loss,  if  not 
of  the  letter  of  life  itself,  of  that  invisible  force  "  whose 
smile  kindles  the  universe,"  and  theirs  is  but  a  death 
in  life. 

There  are  some  birds  which  must  invariably  be  seen 
at  their  best,  simply  because  of  their  rarity.  This  is  not 
a  euphuism  ;  one  so  sees  them,  because  one  sees  them  in 
life.  My  acquaintance  with  rare  birds  is  not  extensive, 
but  I  have  had  my  moments.  On  April  19th  a  golden 
oriole  (a  bird  of  the  thrush  tribe  as  big  as  the  throstle, 
and,  but  for  the  dusky  wings,  all  over  a  luminous 
golden-yellow)  flashed  out  of  a  hedge  into  the  wood  a 
few  yards  off.  I  happened  to  be  standing  between 
the  hedge  and  the  wood.  There  is  no  more  to  be  said. 
This  oriole  is  a  summer  visitor,  and  flies  over  from 
foreign  parts  straight  into  a  glass  case.  I  met  him  on 
the  way. 

The  cirl  bunting  is  not  so  rare  and  is  a  resident 
species.  But  it  is  so  local  in  distribution  even  in 
Hampshire,  its  headquarters,  that  to  see  it  in  what- 
ever circumstances  is  enough.  I  saw  it  in  good,  for 
it  was  singing  high  up  in  a  poplar,  fifty  yards  from 
my  door,  its  harmonies  of  olive,  chestnut,  black  and 
yellow  lustrous  against  the  leaves.  There  has  been 
some  controversy  about  the  quality  of  the  song,  but, 
unambitious  though  it  be,  it  has  a  character  of  its 


A  VILLAGE   IN  HAMPSHIRE          179 

own.  It  is  in  the  same  notation  as  the  yellow-hammer's, 
but  the  quality  of  the  song  is  superior,  for  the  short 
notes  are  louder  and  livelier,  less  droning,  and  each 
one,  though  strung  on  one  thread,  more  roundly  enun- 
ciated. The  resemblance  of  the  song  to  the  lesser 
whitethroat's  has  been  justly  noted. 

If  the  cirl  bunting  is  thinly  distributed,  it  is  not  at 
all  difficult  to  watch  when  found,  being  a  very  approach- 
able bird.  I  have  seen  him  perched  on  the  post  of  a 
barbed  wire  fence  a  few  yards  away  from  the  nest  with 
unfledged  young  in  it  (as  late  as  the  7th  of  August). 
The  nests  of  both  the  cirl  and  yellow  bunting,  with 
their  platform  and  shallow  cup,  are  neat  structures, 
and  very  cleverly  adjusted  to  the  stems  of  bracken, 
bramble,  hazel,  etc.,  but  both  species  betray  their  nests 
more  readily  than  finches  do.  The  buntings  are,  in  fact, 
mentally  duller  (as  they  are  physically  more  sedentary) 
than  their  finch  relatives,  and  their  defective  intel- 
ligence often  undoes  the  work  of  a  far  more  perfect 
instinct. 

The  tawny  owl,  again,  can  hardly  be  called  a  rarity, 
except  in  districts  infested  by  game-keepers,  but  it 
is  much  more  rarely  seen  than  heard.  I  was  wander- 
ing among  the  beech  hangars  on  a  still,  clear  morning 
in  early  spring,  through  innumerable  smooth  columns 
supporting  a  delicate  filigreed  roof,  painted  in  rich 
purple,  grass-green  and  pale  blue,  when  I  came  in 
sight  of  a  large  grove  of  yews,  so  densely  planted  that 
the  boughs  interlaced  overhead  and  the  roots  below. 
They  grew  at  every  conceivable  angle  and  bent  and 
knotted  shape,  clutching  at  one  another  in  writhing 
folds  and  angularities  above  and  below — like  a  Diirer 
woodcut.  It  was  an  enchanted  wood,  full  of  grotesques 
of  a  "  kindly  malice,"  like  the  work  of  a  mediaeval 
cathedral  craftsman,  dramatizing  the  stone.  Through  this 
strange  wood  there  came  flying  the  wood-owl,  its  ghostly 
familiar.  The  picture  was  phantasmal,  a  glimpse 
into  some  queer  world  where  trees  expressed  them- 
selves in  uncouth  gestures  and  contortions,  arguing 
some  mighty  debate,  not  by  sound  but  shape,  and 
the  owl  by  its  abnormal  sensibility  of  flight  completed 


180      BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

the  illusion.  He  was  twisting  with  speed  and  cer- 
tainty among  the  boles  a  foot  or  two  above  the  floor, 
more,  indeed,  like  a  furtive  conspirator  than  as  one  at 
home  in  his  own  place.  But  no  conspirator  could  have 
crept  and  curved  among  those  trunks  thus  noiselessly 
and  with  how  sure  a  motion  !  The  wood-owl  must,  then, 
possess  some  wonderfully  delicate  tactile  or  sensory 
apparatus  of  nerves  at  the  tips  of  the  wings — like 
the  bats — for  no  bird  of  day  could  thus  have  flown 
among  those  close-pent  yews  with  such  ease  and 
mastery. 

Grey  wagtail,  stock-dove  and  sparrow-hawk  are  none 
of  them  common  birds  in  this  district,  nor,  indeed, 
anywhere  in  England,  except  in  a  few  favoured 
localities,  and  the  pleasure  of  seeing  them  is  un- 
common in  proportion.  The  stock-dove  is  so  much 
akin  in  appearance  to  the  wood-pigeon  (the  ornitho- 
logical differences  themselves  are  negligible — the  rarer 
dove  being  a  trifle  smaller  in  size,  without  the  white 
collaret  round  the  neck,  and  with  an  infusion  of  blue 
run  into  the  grey  of  the  back.  The  song,  too,  is  a 
less  continuous  ripple  of  sound,  the  coo-oop  being 
strongly  punctuated)  that  my  sensations  on  the  few 
occasions  when  I  met  with  it  were  but  the  professional 
ones  of  adding  a  new  species  to  my  list.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  always  knew  where  to  find  the  grey  wagtail— 
which  runs  goldfinch  and  bullfinch  very  close  as  our 
loveliest  small  bird — for  a  pair  nested  in  the  tangled 
herbage  by  the  watermill  at  the  head  of  the  pond. 
The  nest  is  well  concealed  and  made  of  delicate  root- 
lets, grass  and  moss,  lined  with  much  hair  and  a  few 
feathers.  The  eggs  (five  in  number)  are  greyish-white 
mottled  with  brown.  I  remember  one  mild  April  day 
in  particular,  when  I  saw  the  male  in  his  first  nuptial 
colours,  ebony  cravat  and  all,  standing  on  a  leafless, 
sapling  ash  with  sulphur-yellow  breast  brighter  than 
the  sunbeams  playing  on  it.  It  gave  a  touch  of 
triumphant  and  almost  fierce  beauty  to  a  weather 
which  had  at  last  thrown  off  its  roughness  and  finally 
parted  from  its  vagabond  winter  love. 

But   an   experience   I   had   with   a   sparrow-hawk   was 


A  VILLAGE  IN  HAMPSHIRE          181 

one  rather  of  philosophy  than  beauty.     This  hawk  can 
nearly   always   be   distinguished   from   the   kestrel   at   a 
distance,    not    only    because   you   are    much   less    likely 
to  see  it  from  its  greater  rarity  and  its  habit  of  flying 
closer  to  the  ground,  beating  the  hedgerows  and  slipping 
among  the  shadows  of  the  trees,  but  from  the  peculiar 
and  deadly  stealth  of  the  flight.    One  day  in  early  June 
a   sparrow-hawk   flew   close    by   me    as    I   was   walking 
in   the   meadows,  between   the   hangars   and   the   pond, 
and   began   prowling  about  the  fringe  of  trees   border- 
ing the  water.     Suddenly,  a  pair  of  willow-wrens  sallied 
out  from  the  rank  growth,  where  they  had  their  domed 
nest    by    the     water's    edge,    and    attacked    her    with 
fury.     They  swooped   fiercely   at   her,  and   she  avoided 
them  by  doubling  to   and  fro.     But  not  for  long,   for 
all    at   once   she   turned  tail  and  bolted  for  the   wood, 
pursued     for     a     few    yards    by    the    warblers.     Many 
small   birds   will,   of  course,   attack  a   hawk  en  volage, 
so    to    speak,    and    out    of    business    hours,    especially 
swallows,   starlings   and   wagtails.     But   this   was   some- 
thing   different.     How,    then,    did    these    willow-wrens 
put    their    special    and    terrible    enemy,    against    whom 
they    were    utterly    defenceless,    to    such    ignominious 
flight  ?    By   the   exercise   of  precisely   the   same   moral 
conviction    (apart    from    imaginative    insight    and    con- 
ceptual   power)    that    made    Shelley    write    Prometheus. 
In     the     nesting    season,    birds    are    literally   inspired. 
They  turn  over  an  intoxicating  new  leaf  of  life,  as  the 
pupa     is     transformed     to    the    butterfly.      Indeed,     I 
greatly  doubt  whether  the  sparrow-hawk  picks  up  any 
nestlings  during  the  breeding  season,  except  when  the 
young  have  left  the  nest  or  the  parent  birds  are  absent. 
Any  pair  of  adult   birds,   or  even  single   birds   at    the 
nest,  could  rout  it,  simply  because   at   that  time  they 
possess  the  supreme  faculty  of  devotion  and  self-forget- 
fulness    it    is    without.     The    difference    between    their 
inspiration    and    its    routine    is    enough    to    turn    the 
tables.     Such  is   the  power  of  a  good   cause,  for  later 
in    the    year    those    same    birds    when    they    see    that 
same  hawk  will  scream  and   dive  into  the  bushes  with 
terror. 


182       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

But  the  commoner  birds  can  give  us  as  many  precious 
moments  of  choiceness  and  distinction  as  those  less 
familiar  and  striking  can  do,  since  we  have  more 
opportunities  of  getting  them.  In  a  small  grove  of 
firs,  in  that  same  beech-wood  where  the  tawny  owl 
displayed  his  parts,  I  fell  in  with  a  party  of  cole-tits 
hanging  to  the  terminal  twigs  of  a  beech.  I  looked 
through  the  dark  sage-green  of  the  firs  up  at  their 
minute  black  pates  and  white  cheeks  set  in  the  palest 
apple  green,  with  a  thin  coating  of  chequered  blue  above, 
and  for  the  moment  I  wondered  whether  earth  had  any- 
thing to  show  more  fair.  In  the  wood  where  I  got 
on  terms  with  the  blackcap  I  once  saw  half  a  dozen 
cole-tits  ascending  and  probing  the  bark  of  a  birch 
with  the  same  action  as  a  creeper,  except  that  they 
used  their  wings  to  flutter  upwards.  These  illustrious 
pioneers  were  not  so  beautiful  as  the  beechwood  party, 
but  more  suggestive,  richer  in  promise,  and  so  quaint, 
halt,  and  yet  aspiring  in  their  motions,  that  they  re- 
minded me  of  the  cuts  in  old  emblem-books,  where  the 
soul  wings  its  way  painfully  to  heaven  with  a  large 
iron  weight  attached  to  its  extremities.  Yet  was  this 
or  the  other  a  more  revealing  thing  to  see  than  that  far 
more  characteristic  one — a  procession  of  tits  passing 
in  a  hubbub  of  talk  through  the  leafless  trees  on  a  grey 
winter's  day  ?  For  birds  face  their  heroic  struggle  with 
the  elements  not  by  competition  but  co-operation, 
standing  foursquare  to  the  winds  that  blow. 


II 

The  best  of  throstle  and  chaffinch  is  not,  I  think, 
in  their  songs,  though  at  dusk  and  some  distance  off 
the  former's  sensuous  melody  is  very  beautiful.  I 
prefer  his  soft  olive  and  brown,  his  attitudes  and 
abrupt,  dashing  runs  on  the  turf.  Above  all,  the  sitting 
hen-bird's  mingling  of  tenacious,  desperate  courage  in 
sticking  to  her  nest  and  appeal  from  liquid  eyes  to 
the  intruder  have  always  been  more  to  me  than  the 
song,  unless  I  have  heard  it  in  more  favourable  cir- 
cumstances than  usual.  Complexity  of  emotion  and 


A  VILLAGE  IN  HAMPSHIRE          183 

conflict  between  opposing  impulses  in  birds  are  always 
fascinating,  and  the  panting  heart  of  the  thrush  on 
her  nest  telegraphs  "  fly,  fly "  to  the  mind,  but  the 
mind  at  the  point  of  yielding  rallies  and  beats  the 
clamour  down,  whispering,  "  stay,  stay,  and  the  monster 
will  pass  your  cottage  by,  or  if  he  sees  you  will  be 
charmed  from  his  mischief  by  the  supplication  of  your 
eyes."  Of  course,  nor  heart  nor  mind  nor  eyes  make 
any  difference.  Who  bothers  about  a  thrush's  feel- 
ings ?  There  was  a  conspicuous  thrush's  nest  in  my 
blackcap  wood  where  I  used  to  witness  this  drama 
whenever  I  passed  through,  until  there  came  a  day 
when  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  a  ruin.  Sic 
vos  non  vobis  nidificatis  aves !  but  for  any  passing 
hooligan's  pleasure  in  spoliation.  I  doubt  whether  one 
in  a  hundred  first  broods  of  the  song-thrush  ever  get 
off,  for  the  birds  are  extraordinarily  amateurish  in  their 
choice  of  sites  for  building,  picking  out  exposed  places 
which  compel  your  attention.  Let  us  hope  that  Natural 
Selection  is  teaching  the  too  eager  and  amorous  thrush 
love's  patience  as  well  as  his  fire,  for,  with  so  clever  a 
predatory  animal  as  man  to  cope  with,  it  behoves  it 
to  wait  until  its  homes  are  well  screened  from  prying 
eyes.  Of  course,  late  broods  do  make  up  some  leeway, 
or  the  race  would  be  extinct,  and  it  is  probable  that 
the  nesting  season  is  already  less  premature.  It  is 
that  or  greater  prolificacy,  and  I  have  myself  seen  young 
thrushes  as  late  as  early  October. 

The  chaffinch's  song,  again,  pleases  me  as  a  jovial, 
natural  sound,  and  a  bold,  and  for  little  else.  It  enlivens 
the  heart  more  for  its  association  than  its  intrinsic  sake, 
and  is  coarse,  flat,  and  metallic  in  musical  quality. 
The  melodies  of  yellow-hammer  and  wren  are  also  set 
phrases,  but  they  never  fail  to  give  delight.  The  interest 
of  the  chaffinch's  song  is  one  of  character  and  manner, 
not  sound ;  it  is  a  defiance,  a  king-of-the-castle  challenge, 
and  it  shouts  "  Ha,  ha  !  "  as  it  smells  the  battle  afar 
off,  the  thunder  of  the  captains  and  the  shouting.  The 
chaffinch  is  finest  in  his  spring  coat  of  many  colours, 
black,  grey-blue,  green,  chestnut,  yellow  and  white,  as 
he  puffs  out  his  chest  on  a  twig  and  dares  his  fellows 


184      BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

to  dispute  his  fair,  or  chases    her    in   wild  circles  and 
headlong  dives  through  the  air. 

But  these  standards  read  rather  more  absolutely 
than  I  intend  them.  The  human  mood  and  attitude 
so  constantly  alter  values  that  the  significance  of  a 
bird's  action  shifts  in  proportion,  and  precisely  the 
same  spectacle  appeals  to  the  mind  one  day  and  the 
eye  alone  on  another.  One  warm  day  in  late  April 
I  was  lying  upon  a  hillside  overlooking  a  bountiful 
stretch  of  woodland  and  pasture  with  the  rounded 
curves  of  the  Sussex  Downs  rising  beyond  it.  Here 
one  could  have  lain  thoughtless,  silent  and  absorbed 
for  hours,  in  a  serenity  gradually  enfolding  one  as  the 
sea  covers  a  rock.  One  begins  to  find  out  what  it  feels 
like  to  be  a  tree.  Then  suddenly  a  yaffle  flew  up  right 
from  the  valley,  passed  over  my  head  and  alighted  on 
a  tree  fifty  yards  away.  The  open  view  I  had  of  the 
bird,  the  transition  from  repose  and  immobility  to 
the  most  rhythmic  of  all  movements — flight — gave  me 
the  sensation  of  rushing  through  the  air  more  than 
I  have  ever  felt  it  before,  while  the  nature  of  the 
yaffle's  flight,  its  curving,  sweeping  lines,  the  pauses 
in  the  wing-beats,  the  drop  and  recovery  all  contri- 
buted to  snatching  me  from  the  ground.  Had  it 
been  a  wood-pigeon,  and  had  I  seen  this  flight  in  any 
other  confluence  of  conditions,  I  should  have  stayed 
where  I  was.  Yet  a  yaffle  on  any  other  day  would 
fly  as  fast. 

There  is  one  bird  whose  best  is  distinctly  his  worst 
in  all  circumstances,  and  that  is  the  corn-bunting, 
largest  of  his  family,  and  commoner  in  the  valleys  than 
the  yellow-bunting,  while  on  the  uplands  the  positions 
were  reversed.  The  song  has  been  compared  with 
breaking  glass,  a  rattling  chain,  the  alarm-notes  of 
the  skylark,  the  wheezing  in  the  pipes  of  an  aged  rustic, 
and  the  squeezing  of  pebbles  together.  I  defer  to  these 
just  and  inventive  similes,  and  have  only  to  add  that, 
unlike  the  yellow-bunting,  who  demands  both  bread 
and  cheese,  unlike  the  cirl,  who  leaves  out  the  cheese, 
the  corn  leaves  out  the  bread.  "  Quick,  quick,  cheese  !  " 
he  says,  and  the  style,  semi-articulate,  slurred,  thickened 


A  VILLAGE  IN  HAMPSHIRE          185 

and  in  the  rough,  is  exactly  the  bird.  One  morning 
I  watched  a  corn-bunting  having  a  mud  bath  in  the 
road,  fifteen  paces  from  where  I  stood,  plainly  visible 
to  him.  There  he  was  in  his  chequered  and  untidy 
plumage  of  various  shades  of  brown,  gravely  standing 
on  his  chest,  with  his  beak  planted  in  the  water  like 
a  walking-stick.  He  then  solemnly  elevated  his  tail, 
proceeded  to  some  perfunctory  flutterings  of  the  wings, 
stopped  and  had  a  look  round,  and  went  on  with  his 
ablutions  again.  At  the  end  of  this  ceremonious  rite, 
this  consequential  purification,  only  his  breast  was  wet, 
and  he  looked  just  as  slatternly  and  dishevelled  as  he 
did  at  the  beginning.  Thus  he  goes  muddling  dowdily 
through  life,  wearing  it  like  an  ill-fitting  coat,  and 
always  indolent.  I  love  him  for  it,  and  how  could 
Mr.  Hudson  have  the  heartlessness  to  write  an  apology 
for  this  best  of  all  companions  on  a  grey  day  ? 

I  have  nothing  to  say  of  the  nightingale  in  this 
district,  for  all  I  heard  of  his  performances  that  year 
was  a  croak,  and  that  was  over  the  Surrey  border. 
The  bird  was  certainly  rare  in  all  the  Southern  Counties 
in  1919,  and  the  blizzard  in  early  April  must  have 
caused  a  heavy  mortality  among  them. 

I  must,  however,  relate  my  experience  with  nightin- 
gales the  following  year,  and  not  in  Hampshire,  but 
at  Boar's  Hill  near  Oxford,  because  the  nightingale  is 
extremely  capricious  in  the  opportunities  he  gives  you 
for  seeing  or  hearing  him  at  his  best,  and  I  know  no 
other  native  singer,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the 
blackbird,  who  is  so  variable  in  the  quality  of  his  song. 
I  feel  diffident  of  disagreeing  with  Mr.  Hudson,  with  his 
divine  intuition  into  the  life  of  the  bird  and  his  wonderful 
ear  for  bird  music,  but  all  the  same  I  cannot  see  eye  to 
eye  with  him  or  listen  ear  to  ear,  when  he  says  that  the 
nightingale  of  the  poets  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
the  nightingale  of  reality.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
he  is  by  far  the  finest  warbler  we  possess,  perhaps, 
with  the  exception  of  the  white-banded  and  other  less 
superb  species  of  mocking-bird,  the  finest  warbler  in  the 
world. 

The  song  lacks  tenderness — parts  of  it  are  a  pelting 


186       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

rain  of  hard  jewels — but  it  has  three  characteristics 
which  crown  it.  First,  there  is  the  perfect  phrasing, 
the  mastery  of  workmanship,  the  sheer  lyrical  power ; 
secondly,  there  is  the  marvellous  variety  of  pitch 
and  tone,  and,  thirdly,  the  passion  of  the  music,  its 
fieriness  and  plangent  strength.  The  daringly  high  pre- 
lude— whew,  whew,  whew — repeated  sometimes  a  dozen 
times,  peals  out,  and  there  is  silence ;  then  a  wire 
twanged,  as  though  an  invisible  hand,  delicate  as 
Oberon's,  struck  his  stringed  instrument  with  tremendous 
force,  until  the  leaves  of  the  tree  seem  to  vibrate  with 
the  sound,  and  silence  again ;  a  rich,  mellow,  rapid 
warble,  and  again  silence ;  a  liquid,  bubbling  note 
followed  by  a  clear,  bright  whistle,  wind  and  stringed 
instruments  snatched  up  in  turn. 

The  first  nightingale  I  heard  at  Boar's  Hill  was  in 
full  view  on  the  low  branch  of  an  elm  in  a  thick  copse 
bordered  by  water-meadows,  nor  did  my  rude  presence 
so  close  to  him  at  all  disturb  him.  But  I  had  heard 
better  singers,  and  as  evening  drew  on,  and  the  sun  put 
its  head  through  its  golden  garland  of  elm-leaves,  the 
bird  fell  silent  and  sought  his  invisible  mate,  who  all 
along  had  answered  his  fierce  wooing  with  little  stray 
exclamations.  She  fled  his  burning  love,  and  among 
the  fluttered  leaves  of  the  elm,  before  the  chorus  of 
the  song,  and  now  the  bower  for  his  winged  dance,  he 
played  out  his  throbbing  notes  in  action,  in  a  chase  of 
wild  dives,  circles  and  dashes,  a  full,  tawny  and  silver- 
white  in  the  level  rays  of  the  sun.  Then  the  moon 
usurped  the  sky,  a  more  spiritual  sun,  and  two  other 
nightingales  struck  into  music,  a  more  spiritual  music, 
which  continued  until  past  midnight.  One  of  these 
songs,  apart  from  all  the  magic  of  association,  was  of 
a  beauty  and  purity  excelling  those  of  any  nightingale 
I  remember  to  have  heard.  His  melody  was  not  sung 
for  me,  nor  even  for  his  listening  mate,  lulled  upon 
her  eggs  in  her  oak-leaf  cottage,  for  it  seemed  the 
enraptured  voice  of  all  nature,  her  "  alleluia  sweet  and 
clear  "  to  the  Author  of  her  being. 

But  we  are  in  Hampshire,  not  Oxfordshire. 

Memory   tells   me   that   magpies   and   jays    filled    my 


A  VILLAGE   IN  HAMPSHIRE          187 

mind  with  colour  more  than  any  other  bird  I  studied 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  this  Hampshire  village,  especially 
the  magpie.  Both  of  these  splendid  and  gifted  species 
were  surprisingly  common  in  the  district,  and  one  day 
in  early  September  I  recorded  the  fact  that  I  had  seen 
no  fewer  than  forty-one  magpies  (mostly  at  the  foot 
of  the  hangars)  with  as  much  self-importance  as  though 
I  had  been  decorated  with  forty-one  medals.  No  doubt 
I  saw  the  same  bird  more  than  once,  but  at  any  rate 
there  they  were  in  the  abundance  they  used  to  be  and 
ought  to  be.  It  reminded  me  of  the  days  when  they 
used  to  congregate  in  assemblies,  like  lyre-birds,  birds 
of  paradise,  ruffs  and  reeves,  blackcock,  etc.,  many  of 
whose  spring  rites  are  being  broken  for  ever.  I  used 
to  watch  these  pies,  too,  in  all  conditions — feeding  on 
the  meadows  (sometimes  in  the  same  field  with  hens 
and  young  chickens) ;  flying  along  close  to  the  ground 
and  making  that  half- turn  before  alighting  which  dis- 
plays the  iridescent  plumage  full  face,  so  to  speak ; 
making  for  the  thin  sky  with  long  rudder-like  tails 
behind  and  short,  rounded  wings  beating  like  a  screw, 
frothing  the  pied  plumage  into  a  soft,  misty  grey, 
and  sounding  their  rattles  among  the  trees.  Like 
the  wagtails,  magpies  are  always  in  several  minds ; 
feeding  is  the  most  frolicsome  thing  in  the  world,  and 
delightful  and  abrupt  sensations  dash  in  upon  them 
one  after  another,  possessing  them  and  finding  expres- 
sion in  singular  and  as  it  were  parti-coloured  action. 
Not  that  he  is  incapable  of  the  pontifical  manner.  He 
will  stroll  comfortably  across  the  field  or  doze  in  the 
sunlight,  until  suddenly  the  Castle  of  Indolence  is  razed 
to  the  ground,  the  tail  rears  itself  up  at  right  angles 
to  the  body,  and  the  body  is  slewed  wildly  round.  Or 
he  seems  to  stand  on  his  bill  with  wings  fluttering  like 
pennons  in  a  gale  ;  or  he  takes  a  three-step  sideways 
hop,  as  though  to  confound  all  continuity.  Indeed, 
you  never  know  where  to  have  your  bird.  He  is  not 
even  a  pie,  strictly  speaking,  for  his  bold,  contrasted 
plumage  is  glossed,  shaded  and  graduated  by  gleaming 
tints  of  green,  violet,  grey  and  metallic  bronze.  His  note 
is  described  as  a  chattering  or  bleating,  but  he  possesses 


188       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

a  quiver-full  of  different  sounds,  and  the  chatter  itself 
expresses  a  varied  repertory  of  emotion.  In  the  wood 
where  I  had  heard  the  blackcap  I  once  frightened  off 
a  wood-pigeon  and  a  magpie  from  their  nests  on  the 
top  of  a  maple  and  a  lofty  Scots  pine.  The  pigeon  went 
right  away  with  a  clatter  of  wings,  but  the  pie  only 
flew  to  a  tree  a  little  distance  away  and  uttered  the 
usual  rattle,  but  in  it  the  tautology  of  anxiety. 

Surely  there  must  be  a  few  landowners  who  have 
opened  their  eyes  and  minds  to  the  decorative  effect  of 
a  pied  troupe  of  from  a  dozen  to  a  score  magpies  upon 
their  land.  They  light  the  English  landscape  up  and 
make  it  so  strong  and  savorous  that  one  would  have 
thought  an  owner  who  held  his  land  in  trust  rather  than 
for  exploitation  would  preserve  magpies  as  jealously  as 
vicars  do  the  ancient  yews  in  their  churchyards.  Magpies 
are  to  English  woodland  and  pastures  what  the  place 
and  other  names  are  to  "  Paradise  Lost." 

Many  an  avowed  protector  of  birds  is  as  bad  as  any 
oaf  with  a  gun.  One  of  them  told  me  that  he  shot 
jays  and  magpies  to  give  other  birds  a  chance.  What 
sort  of  amphibians,  then,  I  asked  him,  do  you  call  jays 
and  magpies  ?  It  is  this  kind  of  thing  that  opens  the 
cause  of  protection  of  the  just  charge  of  sentimental- 
ism.  These  are  the  soft,  cruel  hearts  of  which  Bernard 
Shaw  speaks,  for  where  could  you  find  a  better  example 
of  meddling  sentimentalism  than  to  coddle  some  species 
at  the  expense  of  others  ?  Let  the  small  birds  take 
their  chance,  as  nature  meant  them  and  brightened 
their  faculties  to  meet  it,  and  if  the  magpie  does  sample 
an  egg  now  and  again,  then  let  him !  It  is  not  so 
much  the  big  landowners  who  are  responsible  to-day 
as  the  profiteers  who  have  bought  up  land.  The  worst 
of  "  vermin  "-killers  and  pheasant-preservers  is  your 
city  man  who  has  made  his  pile  in  all  lawful  dishonesty. 
Soon,  too,  when  the  supply  of  foreign  birds  runs  short, 
the  women  will  be  after  their  plumage. 

In  the  beginning  of  June  I  set  out  to  explore  the 
banks  of  the  little  river  Rother,  which  joins  the  Arun 
near  Petworth  in  Sussex,  but  is  seldom  more  than  thirty 
paces  wide  in  this  part  of  Hampshire. 


A  VILLAGE  IN  HAMPSHIRE         189 

To  walk  beside  an  English  stream  being  one  of  the 
choicest,  is  naturally  one  of  the  rarest  of  pleasures,  and 
no  sooner  was  I  strolling  under  the  willows  than  an 
angry  game-keeper  bore  down  on  me.  He  drove  on 
like  a  sedge-warbler,  though  in  a  less  agreeable  voice, 
but  it  was  really  the  so  much  A  B  C  of  his  profession, 
for  he  soon  came  to  see  that  I  was  a  harmless  dolt, 
and  promptly  took  me  off  to  see  a  snipe's  and  a  king- 
fisher's nest — a  conduct  which  confounded  me  much 
more  than  his  railings.  The  former  was  a  jerry-built 
affair  of  grass-stems  in  a  thick  tussock  of  a  rough  field, 
and  the  latter  was  an  enormous  hole  in  the  roots  of  a 
fallen  beech  projecting  over  the  edge  of  the  stream- 
bank,  and  more  appropriate  to  an  otter  than  the 
winged  star  with  orange,  azure  and  emerald  lights, 
who  shoots  rarely  now  along  our  English  waters. 
The  kingfishers'  burrows  I  have  seen  have  been  no 
larger  than  a  sand-martin's,  and  it  is  probable  that  the 
kingfisher  occasionally  uses  the  discarded  ones  of  this 
martin.  I  watched  for  some  time,  but  seeing  nothing 
but  dragon-flies  (Calopteryx  virgo  ?)  winged  pure  tur- 
quoise, moved  on  upstream,  and  a  luxuriously  tangled 
Bower  of  Acrisia  I  found  this  river-valley — deep  wood 
on  one  side,  lushy  meadows,  osiers,  alders  and  rushes 
on  the  other ;  water  voles  in  the  bank,  water- 
hens  on  the  stream  and  silvery  fish  beneath  it. 
I  found  no  reed-buntings,  but  in  a  tall  reed-bed  (a 
foreign  importation,  rather  like  a  thin  bamboo  with 
the  stalks  banded  green  and  brown  at  regular  intervals) 
I  found  a  reed-warbler's  nest  with  five  young,  warm, 
pulsating,  downy  balls  of  life,  the  mandibles  opening 
to  the  touch  of  my  finger  by  reflex  action.1  The  nest 
was  a  notable  piece  of  architecture,  deep,  cup-shaped, 
neatly  slung  seven  feet  from  the  ground,  and  woven 
round  the  stalks  with  dry  bents,  moss  and  flowering 
grasses,  with  a  lining  of  horsehair  and  feathers.  While 

1  This  is  one  of  the  few  obligatory  movements  of  young  birds. 
Birds,  being  big-brained  and  educable,  are  not  endowed  at  birth 
with  a  heavy  battery  of  reflexes  and  tropisms.  They  are  ready- 
made  only  in  structure,  and  time  bites  upon  them  from  the  egg. 
For  the  way  chicks  profit  by  experience,  see  Lloyd  Morgan. 


190       BIRDS   OF   THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

I  was  inspecting  it  the  parent  bird  (the  female  had 
flown  right  away  on  my  approach)  was  swinging 
his  restless,  shadowy  form  (it  is  quite  easy  to  dis- 
tinguish from  the  sedge-warbler,  whose  back  is  fretted, 
the  reed's  being  uniform)  among  the  columns  of  the 
reeds,  singing  and  scolding  with  all  his  might.  The 
bird  was  never  more  than  two  or  three  yards  away 
from  me,  and  I  caught  the  girding  notes  in  the  song 
full.  But  it  struck  me  as  very  beautiful,  copious,  re- 
fined, sparkling  with  high-lights  of  lucid  and  pene- 
trating notes,  a  breeze  among  harebells,  sometimes  soft 
as  the  golden-tinted  down  shed  by  the  sun  upon  the 
evening  sky.  In  the  same  clump,  some  five  feet  from 
the  ground,  I  was  surprised  to  find  a  blackbird's  nest 
with  eggs  (a  second  brood,  no  doubt),  suspended  and 
woven  among  the  stalks  (though  with  less  art)  in  the 
same  way  as  the  reed-warbler's — a  unique  discovery 
in  its  way. 

I  then  walked  on  for  another  mile,  until  I  emerged 
from  the  banks  of  the  river  before  a  house  with  used- 
up,  dusty,  short  grass  in  front  of  it.  Between  the 
bank  and  the  house  was  a  small  sand -bank  with  a 
few  holes  in  it,  ex-residences  of  the  sand-martin,  who, 
like  his  congeners,  becomes  rarer  every  year.  I  stood 
idly  looking  at  it,  when  into  one  of  the  holes  plunged 
a  kingfisher,  and  I  got  within  a  dozen  feet  of  the  front- 
door before  out  he  came  like  the  sun  from  a  cloud, 
flame  out  of  coal,  an  inspiration  from  the  mind,  out 
from  the  tawny  sand,  a  Psyche  of  iridescent  coloured 
lights !  Things  were  bound  to  fall  a  bit  flat  after 
this,  but  returning  homewards,  I  was  pleased  to  find 
a  nuthatch's  nest  half-way  up  the  trunk  of  a  birch, 
a  neat  hole,  carefully  plastered  with  clay  to  prevent 
the  incursion  of  any  house-breaking  starlings.  Wood- 
peckers are  not  such  a  match  for  the  starling  as  the 
nuthatch.1  The  dragon-flies,  vibrating  their  translucent 
wings  in  a  jewelled  mist  above  the  guelder-roses  near 

1  It  is  just  possible  that  sparrows  and  starlings  (related  to 
the  parasitic  cow-birds  of  the  Argentine)  are  beginning  to  take 
the  wrong  turning  in  life.  In  bygone  ages  the  cuckoo  probably 
began  sowing  her  wild  oats  by  stealing  nests. 


A  VILLAGE   IN  HAMPSHIRE          191 

the  keeper's  cottage,  were  a  glorious  thing  to  see,  and 
I  noticed  three  more  species,  one  dark  bottle-green 
(wings  and  all),  another  with  orange-brown  wings  and 
pale  green  body,  and  a  third  purplish-black  with  corus- 
cating green  wings,  like  the  pirates  in  a  pantomine. 

I  went  with  the  keeper  to  see  his  kingfishers  (breath- 
ing no  word  of  my  own),  but  we  only  saw  them  meet 
for  one  to  relieve  the  other  and  exchange  a  tender  greet- 
ing at  the  nesting  hole.  It  struck  me  that  these  king- 
fishers were  breeding  very  late,  and  the  ones  higher  up 
the  stream,  no  doubt,  had  nearly  fledged  their  young.1 

My  trespassee  was  a  queer  one.  He  told  me  he  had 
always  refused  the  bribes  of  bird-stuffers  and  collectors 
to  kill  the  woodpeckers,  kingfishers  and  other  rare  birds 
on  the  estate,  and  took  pride  in  calling  himself  most 
exceptional  in  this  respect.  For  my  part  I  told  him 
candidly  what  I  thought  of  the  ignoble  business  of 
pheasant-rearing.  So  far  from  resenting  what  I  said, 
he  seemed  to  comprehend  my  point  of  view,  and  I 
could  see  that  he  shot  his  "  vermin "  (he  killed  a 
hobby  once)  with  reluctance,  while  owls  he  had  the 
surprising  good  sense  to  spare.  Indeed,  he  had  a 
genuine  liking  for  birds ;  my  sort  was  a  secret  vice 
to  him,  and  listening  to  me  and  half  agreeing  a  kind 
of  delightful  drug.  Neither  did  he  indulge  in  any  of 
the  usual  sentimental  moral  cant  about  "  good  birds  " 

1  Courthope,  by  the  way,  mentions  the  Rother  and  its  kingfishers 
in  The  Paradise  of  Birds. 

Oh  blissful  hour 

When  Blanche  and  Flavia  joined  with  me, 
Tri-feminine  Directory, 
Dispensed  in  latitudes  below. 
The  laws  of  flounce  and  furbelow. 
And  held  on  bird  and  beast  debate, 
What  lives  should  die  to  serve  our  state ! 
At  morn  we  sent  the  mandate  forth  ; 
Then  rose  the  hunter  of  the  North, 
And  all  the  trappers  of  the  West 
Bowed  at  our  feminine  behest. 
Died  every  seal  that  dared  to  rise 
To  his  round  air-hole  in  the  ice  ; 
And  by  green  Bother's  reedy  side 
The  blue  kingfisher  flashed  and  died. 


192       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

and  "  bad  birds,"  understanding  very  well  that  moral 
distinctions  between  the  man  who  coveted  a  monopoly 
in  killing  for  self-indulgence  and  the  bird  killed  by 
man  because  it  obeyed  the  law  of  its  nature  in  killing 
the  same  prey  for  food  had  better  be  left  alone. 

All  around  us  were  the  pampered  pheasant  chicks, 
in  special  coops,  in  a  special  field,  fed  on  special  grain 
food,  with  special  hens  to  brood  them  and  special  men 
to  guard  them  day  and  night — here  was  the  whole 
expensive  paraphernalia  of  elaborate  waste  to  gratify 
an  atavistic  pleasure.  Simply  in  order  to  enable  a 
few  rich  men,  "butchers  by  battue,"  to  plume  them- 
selves in  killing  off  so  many  tame  birds  in  so  many 
hours,  the  whole  wise  balance  of  nature  has  been  tipped 
to  the  beam.  I  asked  him  whether  he  agreed  that 
the  persecution  of  their  natural  enemies  had  been  re- 
sponsible for  the  increase  of  the  wood-pigeons  and 
sparrows  there  has  been  such  an  ado  to  keep  down  of 
late  years. 

16  Yes,"  quotha,  "  but- 

"  Spare  me  that,"  said  I ;  "or  do  you  really  believe 
that  game-preservers  (what  a  queer  way  we  have  of 
preserving  in  order  to  kill  and  killing  in  order  to  pre- 
serve !)  kill  off  the  crows  and  hawks  and  owls  for  love 
of  warblers  and  finches  ?  "  1 

But  we  parted  on  the  best  of  terms,  and  as  a  mark 
of  his  esteem  I  was  presented  with  a  tract,  which  I 
received  with  as  much  blushing  gratitude  as  though 
I  had  been  handed  a  silver  cup  at  a  ceremonial  dinner. 

So  I  packed  off  into  the  dusk,  thinking  of  what  I 
had  seen  and  of  our  warfare  on  birds  for  economic 
reasons,  on  those  very  birds  our  magnanimous  game- 
preserving  system  protects  from  the  cruel  hawks,  think- 
ing, too,  of  nature's  own  kind  wisdom,  who  loves  all 
her  creatures  impartially,  who  desires  all  of  them  to 
live  in  the  sweet  sunlight  to  their  fullest  intensity, 
but  will  not  sentimentally  pamper  one  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  another.  But  on  one  side  of  me  the  hedge 
was  starred  with  white  campion,  on  the  other  the  field 

1  I  recognize,  of  course,  that  the  preservation  of  rare,  small 
and  delicate  birds  owes  a  great  deal  to  enclosed  estates. 


A  VILLAGE   IN  HAMPSHIRE          193 

was  a  mass  of  crimson  trefoil,  tipped  with  delicate 
pink.  How  can  we  be  mad  in  such  a  world  as  this, 
I  thought.  Beauty  we  fear  and  slay,  because  it  lurks 
somewhere  within  us  all  like  a  snake  in  the  grass. 

A  second  day  was  a  golden  calm  one  in  September 
when  the  mid-summer  trance  was  over  and  the  sleep- 
ing princess  was  once  more  bustling  about  her  green 
manor.  Cole-tits  were  busy  in  the  oak-copses  as  I 
passed  by  them  on  the  way  to  the  station,  but  the  ox- 
eyes  seem  to  prefer  strutting  along  the  top  of  the  way- 
side hedges  in  their  new  yellow  waistcoats.  I  felt  my 
moult  was  safely  through,  and,  carried  in  the  train, 
that  I  was  migrating  of  my  own  volition.  So  I  arrived 
at  Midhurst  Common  (which  is  just  over  the  Sussex 
border),  and  found  myself  in  a  trice  staring  at  a  small 
pond  on  the  south  side  of  the  railway  (which  cuts  this 
fine  common  in  half).  Upon  it  there  was  a  pair  of  coot, 
of  water-hen,  and  of  dabchicks,  with  a  mute  swan  accom- 
panied by  a  single,  well-grown  and  handsome  cygnet, 
thrown  in.  I  say  thrown  in  because  a  swan  on  a  small 
pond  looks  like  a  duck  in  a  puddle  or  John  Bull  on  his 
island  in  a  cartoon,  ridiculously  disproportioned  to  his 
background,  and  so  ugly  for  all  its  whiteness.  The 
cygnet  was  the  only  young  bird,  and  the  bodyguard 
of  reeds  and  reed-mace  with  their  swords  and  clubs 
had  been  unable  to  save  the  eggs  of  the  wild  birds  from 
piracy. 

The  pair  of  dabchicks  took  no  direct  notice  of  one 
another,  but  from  time  to  time  sent  joyous  and 
affectionate  calls  tripping  over  the  water.  Mr.  Edmund 
Selous  describes  the  liquid,  inflected  call  of  the  dab- 
chick  as  a  "  hinny,"  and  that's  good,  but  too  harsh. 
My  own  version  is  a  kind  of  silvery  yodle,  wild  and  of 
the  water,  watery.  It  is  like  a  single  long  spider's 
thread  hung  with  raindrops,  each  one  pure  and  bright, 
and  is  to  the  pond  and  river  what  the  windy  tremolo 
of  the  wood-wren  is  to  the  beech-grove.  In  actual 
sound,  however,  it  comes  nearest  to  the  blue-tit's  spring 
song.  In  spite  of  this,  I  find  it  difficult  to  account 
for  the  singular  charm  these  shy  little  grebes  had  for 
me.  The  coots  with  their  shining  white  shields  and 

13 


194       BIRDS   OF   THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

black  necks,  the  water-hens  with  their  red  lamps  and 
flicking  striped  tails  were  doing  all  manner  of  interesting 
things.  Yet  these  birds,  performing  their  monotonous 
routine,  seemed  to  make  the  others  commonplace.  The 
distinction  may  partly  be  due  to  the  affectionate 
contact  they  kept  with  one  another,  partly  to  the 
effortless  precision  of  their  movements,  and  partly 
to  their  perfect  adaptation  to  their  home,  since  the 
greater  the  absorption  of  an  object  into  its  natural 
environment,  the  truer  and  stronger  the  impression 
upon  its  observer.  Grebes,  little  and  great,  are  far 
more  aquatic  than  amphibious  mallard  and  water-hen 
(who  feed  in  troops  on  the  meadows  like  hens)  or  pon- 
derous coot. 

Over  the  whole  common  I  found  but  three  linnet 
sprites,  launched  like  shots  from  a  fairy  gun  through 
the  air  and  in  full  melody.  It  is  easy  to  tell  linnets 
in  flight,  even  when  silent,  so  high  and  with  such 
velocity  and  buoyancy  do  they  career  along.  Then, 
in  a  breath,  down  they  come  sheer,  as  though  the 
wind  of  inspiration  had  blown  itself  suddenly  out,  or 
round  they  steer  in  another  direction,  as  it  catches 
them  in  flank.  This  fine  common  should  swarm  with 
them,  but  that  blight,  that  ferret,  the  bird-catcher,  has 
doubtless  done  his  work  here  as  elsewhere,  though 
linnets,  like  goldfinches,  are  such  air-trotters  that  one 
grasps  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  whether  fallacious 
or  no. 

An  odd  experience  I  had  in  this  part  of  the  common 
was  the  sight  of  a  wren  on  the  branch  of  a  stunted 
willow  within  two  feet  of  the  ground  scolding  a  large 
adder.  The  snake's  head  was  raised  and  swaying,  and 
it  regarded  the  wren,  so  vehemently  denouncing  it, 
with  an  imperturbable  cold  stare  like  the  stare  of 
Ozymandias's  "  shattered  visage "  over  the  desert.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  the  wren  would  soon  have  fallen 
into  the  adder's  jaws,  and  though  theoretically  I  do 
not  believe  in  sentimental  meddling  with  the  inter- 
relations of  wild  animals,  yet  I  stamped  and  saved 
the  wren  who  promptly  transferred  his  abuse  to  me. 
Yet  we  hesitate  to  allow  human  characteristics  to  birds  ! 


A  VILLAGE   IN  HAMPSHIRE          195 

By  far  the  commonest  birds  on  the  common  were 
cole-tits,  which  I  met  everywhere.  They  are  quite 
fearless  of  man,  and  in  a  little  pine-grove  where  I  sat 
down  they  spun  round  the  twigs  and  gambolled  and 
bustled  and  chattered  and  postured  and  stood  on  their 
heads  about  me,  like  as  if  I  were  no  more  than  a  giant 
fallen  cone.  I  prefer  their  shriller,  crisper,  more  vibrat- 
ing notes  to  those  of  all  the  tits,  with  the  exception  of 
tomtit's  spring  bell.  But  I  had  a  rarer  experience 
than  this,  for  a  pair  of  jays  (without  young,  like  the 
water-birds)  dropped  in  on  the  pines.  There  it  all  was 
in  the  flesh,  as  Hudson  describes  in  Birds  in  a  Village, 
crest  raised  and  depressed,  bright  eyes  narrowly  re- 
garding me,  head  bobbed,  wings  outflung,  feet  perching 
now  on  one  branch  now  on  another,  and  cinnamon  body, 
embroidered  with  black,  white  and  blue,  radiant  against 
the  dark  trees.  Never  before  had  I  seen  jays  so  tame 
and  so  at  my  ease,  and  this  pair,  at  any  rate,  cannot 
have  known  persecution. 

How  readily  the  quick-minded  bird  sloughs  a  habit ! 
My  old  friend  Squire's  vivid  picture  of  its  unchange- 
ableness  in  his  poem,  "  The  Birds,"  is  a  bookish  one. 
We  do  not  ask  our  poets  to  be  expert  ornithologists, 
but  if  their  poetry  will  not  square  with  the  truth  of 
the  universe,  whether  as  observed  or  divined,  it  is  no 
more  than  picturesque.  For  if  birds  were  the  fixed 
quantity  ("  They  are  unchanging :  man  must  still  ex- 
plore ")  he  represents  them,  they  would,  of  course, 
have  been  extinct  centuries  ago.  The  truth  is  that 
the  entire  conglomerate  of  organic — yes,  and  inorganic 
Jife — is  on  an  exploring  expedition,  prospecting  for  God, 
crystals  no  less  than  man,  and  immobility  (as  Blake 
knew  very  well)  is  the  sin  against  nature,  if  it  be  not 
another  name  for  hell  itself. 

It  was  a  melancholy  business  on  the  north  side  of 
the  railway,  once  pine-wood  and  heath  merging  into 
a  large,  wooded,  private  estate.  The  utilitarian  hackers 
and  hewers  (a  utilitarian  is  a  creature  who  destroys 
beautiful  and  useful  things  for  ugly  and  frivolous  pur- 
poses) had  been  there,  and  the  ground  was  like  a  battle- 
field strewn  thick  with  the  bodies  of  pine,  fir  and  other 


196       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

trees,   with   heads    and    limbs    sliced    off    and    numbers 
rotting  into  pulp  where  they  lay  : — 

Sure  thou  didst  flourish  once  !    and  many  springs, 
Many  bright  mornings,  much  dew  and  many  showers, 
Passed  o'er  thy  head  ;    many  light  hearts  and  wings, 
Which  now  are  dead,  lodged  in  thy  living  bowers. 
But  thou  beneath  the  sad  and  heavy  line 
Of  death,  dost  waste,  all  senseless,  cold  and  dark  ; 
Where  not  so  much  as  dreams  of  light  may  shine, 
Nor  any  thought  of  greenness,  leaf  or  bark. 

Nothing  grew  on  the  ground,  nothing  moved  except 
the  surfeited  boring  beetles,  and  I  made  haste  to  escape 
and  trespass  into  the  estate,  where  it  was  almost  as 
bad,  for  I  found  no  life  in  it,  except  one  squirrel  and 
four  cole-tits.  Woods  nowadays  are  haunted  not  by 
ghosts,  but  silence,  vacancy,  desolation,  which  might 
well  take  terrifying  material  forms.  They  are  what 
the  whole  country  will  be  like  one  day,  unless  some- 
thing drastic  happens  to  men's  minds.  It  was  good,, 
then,  to  hear  a  murmur  from  a  willow-wren  by  the 
station,  tenuous,  fragmentary,  scarce  audible,  but  still 
warm  with  old  joys  and  exorcizing  the  evil  spell. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
CHARLES  WATERTON 

IN    these    days,    when    the    rich    diversity    of  human 
kind    is    the    unpardonable    sin    against    the    Holy 
State   and  the   drains   of  thought  are   always   in  order, 
I  turn  to  one  of  our  old  naturalists  with  a  pleasing  sense 
of  profanity. 

"  If  you  dissect  a  vulture  that  has  just  been  feeding 
on  carrion,  you  must  expect  that  your  olfactory  nerves 
will  be  somewhat  offended  with  the  rank  effluvia  from 
his  craw,  just  as  you  would  be  were  you  to  dissect  a 
•citizen  after  the  Lord  Mayor's  dinner."  Yet  the  man 
who  could  give  so  imaginative  a  twist  to  the  study  of 
Natural  History  is  neglected !  Charles  Waterton  was 
a  Yorkshire  squire,  the  owner  of  a  large  estate  (Walton 
Hall)  near  Wakefield,  where  he  had  a  bird-sanctuary, 
stocked  with  many  an  ornithological  rarity.  Just  after 
I  had  been  reading  Waterton  I  happened  to  take  up 
Wallace's  account  of  a  voyage  up  the  Rio  Negro,  a 
tributary  of  the  Amazons.  In  one  portion  he  describes 
how  he  organized  an  entire  village  to  slay  the  orange 
41  cock  of  the  rock "  for  a  fortnight.  The  Amazon 
forests,  says  Wallace,  are  more  silent  and  empty  of  life 
than  the  Sahara.  One  sometimes  wonders,  as  one  gazes 
in  rapture  upon  the  triumphs  of  scientific  destruction, 
whether  in  some  magnificent  future  age  it  will  not  (as 
it  approaches  the  sources  of  energy)  discard  machinery 
altogether  and  invent  a  race  of  men  who,  by  the  simple 
process  of  a  pestilential  vapour  from  their  mouths,  will 
be  enabled  to  wither  and  destroy  every  living  thing 
within  a  radius  of  a  dozen  leagues.  Unconquerable  race, 
I  prophesy  thee  in  a  transport  of  Utopian  zeal !  So 
that  the  verdict  of  the  museum  as  to  old  Waterton's 
eccentricity  (partly  no  doubt  because  he  would  not  have 

197 


198       BIRDS   OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

liis  feathered  friends  exterminated  for  the  cabinet  and 
glass-case)  need  not  prejudice  the  lay  mind.  The 
more  gently  disposed  will  seek  the  explanation  of  a 
certain  quaintness  in  the  squire's  personality  upon  rather 
different  grounds,  "  quando"  as  his  pious  biographer 
Dr.  Hobson  remarks,  "  ullum  inveniemus  par  em  ?  " 

Except  the  Wanderings  in  South  America  delightfully 
reviewed  by  Sydney  Smith,  a  ravishing  account  of 
adventures  with  caymans  and  boa  constrictors  in  the 
Guiana  wilds,  Waterton's  works  have  been  seldom  re- 
printed. They  consist  of  three  volumes  (1838,  1844 
and  1857)  of  Essays  on  Natural  History  (chiefly  about 
the  habits  of  birds,  the  National  Debt,  dressed  and 
served  up  a  la  Cobbett,  spiced  with  tart  references  to 
the  wearing  of  cravats,  and  the  amours  of  rattlesnakes). 
To  each  of  these  volumes  is  prefixed  an  autobiography, 
and — as  a  grand  orchestral  finale — there  is  a  biography 
by  Dr.  Hobson,  of  Leeds,  Boswell,  physician  and  friend. 
The  biography  is  one  of  those  books  which  are  so  bad 
that,  like  high  game,  they  become  as  palatable  to  the 
literary  digestion  as  the  freshest  art.  There  are  posi- 
tively no  infinitives  in  it  that  are  not  split.  The  finny 
squadrons,  the  feathered  tribes,  the  vulpine  race  natate, 
volitate  and  perambulate  throughout  the  book,  and 
to  read  the  biographer  describing  the  drolleries  of  the 
squire  shinning  up  trees,  "  whirling  himself  entirely 
round  in  the  air,"  "  dropping  on  one  foot  "  and  return- 
ing "  by  hopping  back  on  the  contrary  foot,"  declaiming, 
"  Non  de  ponte  cadit  qui  cum  sapientia  vadit"  is  almost 
as  good  as  seeing  a  hoopoe. 

The  greater  part  is  taken  up  with  a  survey  of 
Walton  Hall,  and  oh  !  in  a  manner  compared  to  which 
the  magisterial  Baedeker  is  pyjama  literature.  "  My 
thoughts  ...  in  an  occasional  leisure  hour  ...  on 
paper."  No,  no,  Dr.  Hobson  !  But  we  must  permit 
him,  without  interference,  to  conduct  us  round  the 
extensive  circumference  of  a  domain  so  well  garnished 
and  populated  by  an  unparalleled  assemblage  of  the 
feathered  tribes.  The  estate  was  of  an  "  amphitheat- 
rical  configuration,"  embellished  by  a  lake,  whose  "  finny 
contents  "  therein  disported  themselves.  There,  "  in 


CHARLES   WATERTON  199 

his  genial  element  every  inch  of  him,"  Waterton  in  a 
battered  top-hat  (like  Dr.  Hobson's  style)  would  stroll 
with  him  (absque  sudore  frontis — "  without  perspiration 
on  the  forehead " — for,  unlike  the  squire's,  all  Dr. 
Hobson's  Latin  quotations  are  carefully  translated,  and 
we  are  never  in  doubt  as  to  what  "  Tu  mihi  magnus 
Apollo  "  means)  and  study  the  ways  of  his  orchestral 
guests. 

So  well  were  the  birds  acquainted  with  their  pro- 
tector that  there,  at  the  "  apicial  extremity  "  of  a  bough, 
is  one  "  constructing  a  fabrication  "  (as  it  were  hi  a 
verdant  House  of  Commons)  of  moss  and  straw  before 
the  very  eyes  of  the  onlookers.  Within  the  house  was 
a  large  telescope,  from  which  could  be  seen,  for  instance, 
the  "  uncertain  tenure  of  equilibrium  "  of  the  coot  on 
her  nest.  The  squire  himself  is  not  unworthy  of  study. 
There  was  nothing  he  could  think  or  do  but  in  his  own 
original  way,  for  he  was  a  staunch  Roman  Catholic  (that 
religion  which  worships  a  God  who  cares  nothing  for 
His  birds  and  beasts),  and  always  attributed  his  great 
bodily  strength  to  the  Jesuit  Fathers  at  Stonyhurst 
College,  where  he  was  educated  to  abstain  from  all 
spirituous  liquors.  He  made  up  for  this  abstention 
by  spiritual  draughts  of  unusual  potency,  for  he  relates 
with  the  most  solemn  testimony  that  when  he  was  at 
Naples  he  witnessed  the  miracle  of  the  liquefaction  of 
St.  Januarius's  solid  blood,  repeated  on  January  1st 
of  every  year  since  the  lamentable  death  of  that  martyr. 
But  I  doubt  whether  temperance  had  much  to  do  with 
his  massive  frame,  for  the  grave  Hobson  remarks  that, 
while  he  took  no  drink,  "  he  was  incautious  and  by  no 
means  even  ordinarily  discreet  in  the  consumption  of 
solids." 

Inside  his  house,  he  had  playfully  fashioned  a  number 
of  figures  in  taxidermy  representing  prominent  per- 
sonages of  the  Reformation.  "  He  also  associated  with 
our  most  distinguished  characters  of  Church  Refor- 
mation a  sprinkling  of  his  fancifully  suggested  or  sup- 
posed inhabitants  of  the  infernal  regions,  not,  of  course, 
forgetting  to  introduce,  in  a  moment  of  vanity,  the 
4  Old  Gentleman  '  under  the  cognomen  of  '  Old  Nick  '." 


200       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

But,  in  spite  of  a  somewhat  vigorous  confidence  in  the 
faith,  there  was  nothing  actually  stiff  about  our  naturalist 
either  in  mind  or  muscle.  At  a  ripe  age  he  met  his  old 
friend,  Captain  Jones,  in  Rome,  "  when  we  visited  the 
castle  of  St.  Angelo  and  contrived  to  get  on  to  the  head 
of  the  guardian  angel,  where  we  stood  on  one  leg." 
When  he  was  seventy-seven,  "  I  (Hobson)  was  witness 
to  his  scratching  the  back  part  of  his  head  with  the  big 
toe  of  his  right  foot."  ("  If  they  should  see  their  bishop 
stand,  His  foot  supported  in  his  hand.")  Indeed,  the 
Home,  Habits  and  Handiwork  (1866)  of  Hobson's  is  very 
happily  stored  with  records  of  the  squire's  "  callisthenic 
feats."  In  his  eightieth  year  he  would  show  his 
pleasure  "  in  receiving  me  by  actually  dancing  down 
the  whole  length  of  the  broad  walk,  occasionally  throw- 
ing one  of  his  loose  slippers  from  his  foot  high  up  in  the 
air  above  his  head  and  expertly  catching  it  in  his  hand 
in  its  descent." 

At  an  advanced  age  he  made  himself  a  pair  of  wings, 
and  would  have  sallied  off  the  roof  of  his  stables  had 
not  his  Boswell  arrived  in  the  nick  of  time  to  remind 
him  of  the  fate  of  Icarus.  Being  so  excellent  a  Latin 
scholar  he  desisted.  In  1850,  he  was  up  in  one  of  his 
trees.  "  Suddenly  the  ladder  swerved  in  a  lateral  direc- 
tion— I  adhered  to  it  manfully  ;  myself  and  the  ladder 
coming  simultaneously  to  the  ground  with  astounding 
velocity."  Partial  concussion  of  the  brain  was  the 
result,  somewhat  aggravated  the  same  day  by  his 
servant  withdrawing  the  chair  he  was  about  to  sit  down 
upon.  Never  did  virility  of  body  and  character  emerge 
so  triumphantly  from  a  sufficiently  searching  test,  for 
the  one  survived  the  ministration  of  the  local  bone- 
setter  and  his  own  blood-letting  and  aperients,  the 
other  resolved  in  the  future  "  to  mount  into  trees  with- 
out the  aid  of  ladders."  "  And  here  I  am  just  now, 
sound  as  an  acorn,"  having  arisen  from  "  my  expected 
ruins."  At  any  rate,  from  strangling  boa  constrictors 
in  the  Guiana  wilds  (first  thrusting  his  hat  down  their 
throats)  to  his  arboreal  exercises,  he  certainly  did 
throughout  his  long  life  display  no  less  robustness  of  body 
than  of  faith,  no  less  agility  of  muscle  than  of  mind. 


CHARLES   WATERTON  201 

He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  banks,  keeping 
his  "  solid  tin "  (the  squire's  colloquialisms  are  the 
light  to  the  doctor's  umbrageousness)  in  a  deal  box. 
Politics— 

*'  If  driven  to  extremities,  I  had  rather  be  slain  by  the  sword  of 
a  Tory  at  noonday  than  be  stabbed  at  midnight  by  the  muck-fork 
of  a  sinuous,  tortuous,  treacherous  Whig.  .  .  .  Poor  Britain ! 
I  pity  thee  from  my  heart.  What  with  Jew  and  what  with 
Gentile,  thy  Parliament  House  will  soon  want  a  Lord  Protector 
with  his  whitening  brush.  '  Sir  Harry  Vane.'  The  Lord  deliver 
me  from  Sir  Harry  Vane." 

Our  "  Spes  Danaum "  naturally  refused  to  take  Sir 
Robert  Peel's  Oath — though,  as  he  justly  says : 
44 1  don't  believe  that  Sir  Robert  cared  one  fig's  end 
whether  the  soul  of  a  Catholic  went  up  after  death 
to  the  King  of  Brightness  or  descended  to  the  king 
of  brimstone,"  his  only  aim  being  to  secure  "  full 
possession  of  the  loaves  and  fishes."  Still,  he  cannot 
help  casting  a  compassionate  eye  upon  poor  Britannia 
with  her  mortgaged  shield,  spear  and  helmet,  and 
Cobbett  advancing  upon  her  armed  with  the  keen  and 
gleaming  weapons  of  his  prose  : — 

"  A  debt  of  £800,000,000  sterling  (commenced  by  Dutch  William 
of  glorious  memory)  is  evidently  the  real  cause  of  her  distressing 
malady.  It  is  a  cancer  so  virulent,  so  fetid,  so  deeply  rooted  withal, 
that  neither  Dr.  Wliig  nor  Dr.  Tory,  nor  even  the  scientific  hand 
of  Mr.  Surgeon  Radical,  can  give  any  permanent  relief  to  the 
suffering  patient.  So  fine  a  personage  reduced  to  such  a  state  ! 
Thank  heavens,  we  Catholics  have  had  no  hand  in  thy  misfortunes  !" 

Against  all  the  4t  mean-spirited  and  mercenary 
recreants "  who  ill-treated  animals  he  directed  blows 
of  eloquence  no  less  vehement  than  those  of  his 
physical  agility.  Indeed,  his  darling  sin  of  quotation 
was  apt  to  play  more  than  usual  havoc  with  pro- 
portion when  sacra  indignatio  was  the  stimulant. 
When  he  heard  of  some  linnets  being  blinded  to  make 
them  sing  the  sweeter  he  burst  out  in  a  fury : 
*4  Monstrum  horrendum,  ingens,  cui  lumen  ademptum !  " 

But  from  the   44  initiative  inchoation  "   of  Waterton's 


202       BIRDS   OF  THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

Rumtifooian  character,  as  delineated  by  the  brisk  and 
pithy  Hobson,  let  us  turn  to  the  autobiography. 
Being  tanned  and  furrowed  by  wandering  barefoot  in 
the  tropics,  this  muscular  and  supple  epigrammatist 
was  in  personal  appearance  "  half  Rosinante,  half 
Bucephalus,"  and  "  on  taking  a  view  of  me  from  top 
to  toe  you  would  say  that  the  after  part  of  Tithonus 
had  been  glazed  upon  the  lower  part  of  Ajax."  He 
was,  he  says,  descended  from  Sir  Thomas  More,  and 
the  Catholic  Watertons  were,  of  course,  eclipsed  since 
the  sway  of  "  that  ferocious  brute,  Henry  VIII,"  that 
"  adulterous  king  with  his  cormorant  court,"  a  very 
proper  father  to  the  "  old  virgin  queen "  who  resides 
not  among  "those  happy  souls  who  dwell  in  yellow 
meads  of  asphodel,"  but  "  in  the  sulphurous  walks 
beyond  the  river  Styx."  I  would,  he  says,  "  rather 
run  the  risk  of  going  to  hell  with  the  Venerable  Bede 
than  make  a  dash  at  heaven  in  company  with  Dutch 
William." 

At  school  he  was  a  nailer  for  finding  birds'  nests, 
and  the  birch  merely  inflamed  "  my  ruling  passion.'* 
"  Thus  are  bright  colours  in  crockery-ware  made  per- 
manent by  the  action  of  fire;  thus  is  dough  turned 
into  crust  by  submitting  it  to  the  oven's  heat,"  is  our 
hero's  Euphuistic  comment  upon  the  efficacy  of  refor- 
mative punishment.  After  leaving  the  Jesuits'  college 
at  Stonyhurst,  and  enjoying  a  run  of  fevers  and 
earthquakes  in  Lisbon,  he  went  to  Demerara,  and  had 
some  desultory  fighting  with  the  Spaniards  up  the 
Orinoco.  The  corpulent  Governor  of  Angustura  affords 
him  an  opportunity  for  one  of  those  racy  Panzaisms 
with  which  his  works  are  pitted  :  "He  (the  Governor) 
had  not  got  half-way  through  his  soup  before  he 
began  visibly  to  liquefy.  I  looked  at  him  and  be- 
thought me  of  the  old  saying,  *  How  I  sweat ! '  said 
the  mutton-chop  to  the  gridiron."  Then  follows  a 
maze  of  adventures  and  long  wanderings  between  1804 
and  1825,  told  with  such  candour,  not  to  say  in- 
genuousness, that  I  can  only  exclaim  with  him  against 
the  scurrilous  Swainson,  the  naturalist  and  green-eyed 
monster  who  threw  a  shameful  doubt  on  them. 


CHARLES   WATERTON  20& 

The  Government  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  this 
"  most  intrepid "  explorer,  but  he  did  at  last  get  a 
commission  through  a  friend  to  penetrate  Madagascar. 
His  star  beckoned  him  : — 

*'  Come  and  show  to  the  world  that  conscience  and  not  crime  has 
hitherto  been  the  cause  of  your  being  kept  in  the  background  ; 
come  into  the  national  dockyard  and  refit  your  shattered  bark 
which  has  been  cast  on  a  lee-shore,  where  merciless  wreck-seekers 
have  plundered  its  stores." 

A  tertian  ague  loomed  up  like  a  black  cloud,  and 
"  the  star  went  down  below  the  horizon,  to  appear 
no  more."  ' 

Expeditions  to  Guiana  to  procure  the  Wourali  poison, 
visits  to  Germany,  Italy  and  Belgium  followed.  In 
1825  he  was  in  Bruges,  when  the  Belgians  were  revolting 
for  religious  liberty.  As  the  balls  whistled  round,  he 
sought  shelter  at  a  half-open  door.  "  Just  as  I  arrived 
at  the  threshold  a  fat  old  dame  shut  the  door  full  in 
my  face.  *  Thank  you,  old  lady,'  said  I,  Felix  quam 
faciunt  aliena  pericula  cautam."  The  first  part  of  the 
memoir  concludes  with  a  discourse  on  death  and  his 
own  hairbreadth  escapes  in  the  jungle,  alarming  to 
readers,  but  not  to  him,  well  fitted  for  them  ("Would 
a  '  pampered  menial '  storm  the  deadly  breach  ? 
Would  a  gouty  alderman  descend  the  Rock  of  Ailsa, 
based  by  the  roaring  ocean,  in  quest  of  sea-fowls' 
eg£s?")>  remarks  on  religious  toleration  ("I  think 
I  may  venture  to  assure  their  reverences  that  I,  for 
one,  will  never  use  gunpowder  in  an  unlawful  way'% 
and  a  dirge  on  the  National  Debt. 

Part  II  opens  with  an  account  of  how  he  rid  his 
estate  of  the  "Hanoverian  rat,"  whose  depredations 
"  exceeded  those  of  Cacus."  "  In  the  year  of  grace, 
1839,  the  premises  were  cleared."  After  a  learned 
discourse  on  the  Wourali  poison,  he  now  travels,  with 
a  protest  against  the  "  unbecoming  sneers "  against 
the  Catholic  religion  conspicuous  in  nearly  all  books  of 
travel.  He  is  a  long  while  appreciating  the  storks  in 
Holland,  until  he  breaks  off  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence 
with  the  remark  that  his  intention  was  to  present  the- 


204       BIRDS   OF   THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

reader  with  only  one  small  volume,  "  like  the  song  of 
the  stormcock  in  the  month  of  December."  In  Italy, 
"  represented  so  voluminously  by  different  and  indifferent 
English  travellers," 

"  the  traveller  cannot  walk  the  streets  in  comfort,  unless  he  has 
his  lavender-water  with  him,"  and  "  the  Italians  would  confer 
a  vast  benefit  on  society  if  they  would  deposit  more  fertilizing 
matter  in  their  fields  and  less  in  their  streets  ;  or,  in  case  the  first 
is  not  considered  necessary,  they  might  imitate  the  excellent 
example  of  the  good  people  of  Edinburgh  in  the  olden  time,  when 
they  had  a  man  clothed  in  an  ample  surtout,  crying  up  and  down 
.the  streets  at  night :  4  Wha  wants  me  ?  '  " 

What  struck  him  particularly  there  was  the  dearth  of 
combs.  They  must  have  been  scarce  in  the  time  of 
Horace,  "  for  he  remarks  of  Canidia,  c  crines  et  incomptum 
caput '." 

The  Italian  countryside  he  found  as  empty  of  bird- 
life  (he  compared  it  with  "  Ovid's  memorable  descrip- 
tion of  Famine  ")  as  it  is  to-day,  thanks  to  the  honour- 
able tradition  and  habit  in  that  refined  people  of  dining 
off  warblers.  But  the  material  for  the  entomologist, 
if  not  the  ornithologist,  was  to  be  found  in  the  towns  : — 

"At  the  town  of  Monsilice  there  was  nothing  in  the  way  of 
Natural  History,  saving,  that  in  passing  along  the  street,  there 
was  a  goodly  matron  sitting  on  a  stool,  and  with  her  thumb  nails 
impaling  poachers  in  the  head  of  a  fine  young  woman,  probably 
her  own  daughter." 

In  the  streets  of  Rome,  recollecting  a  happy  old  custom, 
he  would  stop  the  beasts  of  burden  and  cry  out  upon 
them  :  "  Benedicite,  omnes  bestice  et  pecora,  Domino  !  "  At 
another  time,  being  warned  of  the  dangerous  buffaloes 
on  the  road  to  Naples,  he  spied  a  herd,  advanced  upon 
them,  "  and  immediately  threw  my  body,  arms  and 
legs  into  all  kinds  of  antic  movements,  grumbling 
loudly  at  the  same  time."  They  "  took  off,  as  fast  as 
they  could  pelt."  At  "  otiosa  Neapolis "  the  miracle 
of  St.  Januarius  receives  a  round  dozen  of  pages.  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  our  former  Ambassador,  wrote  to 
the  Royal  Society,  he  affirms,  in  1767,  in  the  follow- 
ing words  :  "  It  is  well  attested  that  the  eruption  of 


CHARLES  WATERTON  205- 

Vesuvius  ceased  the  moment  St.  Januarius's  blood  came 
in  sight  of  the  mountains."  In  Rome,  again,  he  observes 
that  the  "  scandalous  deportment  "  of  the  Protestants 
in  the  churches  is  no  doubt  due  to  the  legend  that  "  the 
kindest  and  best  of  pontiffs  is  really  the  man  of  sinr 
who  gets  drunk  on  the  blood  of  nations."  "  Indeed, 
when  I  reflect  on  the  horrible  wickedness  of  England's 
Coronation  Oath  ..." 

"  The  devil,  the  Pope  and  the  Pretender  have  been  drummed  into 
their  ears  (the  Protestants)  from  childhood.  Only  the  Pope  i& 
left,  for  the  Pretender  is  dead,  and  the  devil,  if  we  may  judge  by 
the  frightful  increase  of  magistrates  and  prisons  in  England,  has 
no  spare  time  to  be  in  Rome." 

Coming  home  he  was  shipwrecked,  because  the  captain, 
"  this  dastardly  sansculotte,"  was  "  snoring  in  breech- 
less  state." 

Thus  we  travel  this  literary  land  of  milk  and  honey,, 
through  page  after  page  of  charmed  and  elfish  narrative,, 
more  witty  than  sage,  more  shrewd  than  witty,  and 
again  more  comical  than  shrewd,  as  Euphues  might 
put  it.  The  autobiography  ends  with  an  appropriate 
moral  reflection :  "  Although  life's  index  points  at 
sixty-two,  I  am  a  stranger  to  all  sexagenarian  dis- 
abilities, and  can  mount  to  the  top  of  a  tree  with  my 
wonted  steadiness  and  pleasure."  Our  learned  and 
versatile  squire,  naturalist,  poet,  explorer,  teetotaller, 
devout,  taxidermist,  recommender  of  Macintosh's  life 
preserver,  phlebotomist  (he  "  tapped  his  own  claret " 
eighty  times),  athlete,  humanitarian,  sculler,  handler  of 
rattlesnakes,  and  man  of 'letters,  leaves  us,  as  is  only 
fitting,  in  a  poetic  nimbus.  "  My  time  has  been  a  mere 
sunbeam  on  a  winter's  day,  a  passing  cloud  in  a  tem- 
pestuous sky,  sure  monitors  to  put  us  in  mind  '  that 
we  are  here  now  and  gone  in  a  moment '." 

Ah  !  rest  assured,  honest,  playful  and  learned  squire, 
that  the  account  of  your  adventures  has  not  "  disedified 
the  teacher,  nor  caused  a  frown  upon  his  face  !  "  His 
only  regret  is  that  he  cannot  quote  that  wondrous,  that 
super-Shandyesque  story  of  yours,  so  decorous  in  its 
indecorum,  about  the  ass  and  the  two  carriage  horses^ 


206       BIRDS   OF   THE   COUNTRYSIDE 

So,  go  little  book,  farewell  and  "  remember  my  little 
fellow  "  not  to  be  puffed  up.  For  thou  art  but  "  a  puny, 
and  an  ailing  brat  "  and  so  need  all  the  education  I  have 
given  thee  "  in  passing  through  the  dreary  vale  of 
-criticism."  "  Thy  path,  my  boy,  is  rough  and  thorny  ; 
be  careful  of  thy  steps." 

Though  the  education  of  this  superb  old  gentleman, 
this  "  fantastick  great  old  man,"  as  Lamb  said  of 
Burton,  was  "  more  in  bogs  than  in  books,"  he  makes 
a  naturalist  of  real  knowledge  and  penetration,  and 
ever  buoyant  and  eager  to  pour  his  richness  of  illus- 
tration and  analogy  upon  error  and  superstition.  He 
made  war  upon  nothing  except  the  miserable  Swainson 
and  the  Hanoverian  rat,  and  was  as  humane  a  man  and 
tender  a  lover  of  the  works  of  creation  as  he  was  sur- 
prising a  character.  He  knew  his  birds  as  well  as  he 
loved  them,  and  handled  poisonous  reptiles  "as  if  he  had 
been  leisurely  selecting  the  sweetest  bon-bon  instead 
of  the  most  vigorous  rattlesnake."  Time  and  again  he 
has  been  proved  wise  in  his  generation  by  a  later  one. 
He  was,  I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying,  the  first  naturalist 
to  point  out  that  humming-birds  feed  not  only  on  the 
nectar  of  flowers  but  the  insects  they  find  in  them,  and  that 
woodpeckers  only  attack  a  tree  already  bored  by  grubs. 
He  was  indeed  one  of  the  first  naturalists  to  have  any 
idea  at  all  of  the  "  web  of  life,"  of  the  poise  and  balance 
of  nature  and  of  the  intrinsic  value  of  every  species  in 
preserving  them.  In  his  way  he  was  a  prophet  with 
the  method  in  the  prophet's  madness.  Before  him,  the 
natural  history  which  discovers  the  meaning  of  life  by 
patient  watching  and  sympathy  instead  of  exploiting 
it  by  the  short  cut  through  death  to  a  barren  knowledge 
hardly  existed.  Whenever  he  fell  in  with  snakes  in  the 
jungle,  whether  poisonous  or  harmless, 

41 1  would  contemplate  them  for  a  few  minutes,  ere  I  proceeded, 
jand  would  say  *  gentlemen  of  rainbow  colour,  be  not  alarmed  at 
my  intrusion,  I  am  not  come  hither  to  attempt  your  lives  nor  to 
offer  wanton  molestation.  This  boundless  territory  affords  an 
ample  range  to  both  yourselves  and  me.  Our  interests  can  never 
<clash  as  though  we  were  in  commerce.  So  pray  enjoy  yourselves, 
.and  let  me  do  the  same." 


CHARLES   WATERTON  207 

There  was  once  a  scientific  squabble  as  to  the  defective 
scent  of  the  vulture,  and  when  a  vulture's  eyes  had  been 
put  out  and  he  had  refused  food  immediately  afterwards, 
Waterton  bursts  forth  with,  "  I  myself  have  been  un- 
able to  eat  when  in  the  gripes,"  and  since  the  vultures 
have  received  such  "  a  tremendous  blow  on  the  nose," 

*'  I  am  now  quite  prepared  to  receive  accounts  from  Charleston 
of  vultures  attacking  every  shoulder-of-mutton  sign  in  the  streets, 
or  attempting  to  gobble  down  the  painted  sausages  over  the  shop 
doors,  or  tugging  with  might  and  main  at  the  dim  and  faded  eyes 
in  some  decaying  portrait  of  the  immortal  Doctor  Franklin." 

What  good  sense  there  is  here  and  expressed  with  how 
pungent  a  wit  !  He  hated  docking,  and  looked  upon 
all  "  the  animal  creation  "  as  beautiful,  having  a  special 
fondness  for  the  toad.  Even  when  we  see  a  dead  cay- 
man, "  we  may  remark,  with  the  monster  hero,  treading 
over  his  own  prostrate  mother,  we  did  not  think  that 
they  had  been  so  handsome."  His  opinion  about  the 
"  Hanoverian  rat,"  "  that  it  actually  came  over  in  the 
same  ship  which  conveyed  the  new  dynasty  to  these 
shores,"  is  not  perhaps  strictly  accurate,  but  who  would 
not  sacrifice  all  the  exact  classifications  in  the  world 
for  so  seductive  a  comment  ?  It  was  not  considered 
true  in  his  time  that  "  the  sooty-black  crow  is  as  chaste 
and  constant  as  the  snow-white  dove " ;  but  I  for 
one,  had  I  read  Waterton  in  his  lifetime,  would  never 
have  believed  otherwise.  I  shall  know  exactly  what 
to  do  now  "  in  case  of  collision  with  the  larger  canine 
tribes,"  I  shall  feel  a  particular  veneration  for  the  cor- 
morant after  reading :  "  Stay  here,  poor  wandering 
mariner,  so  long  as  it  pleaseth  thee  to  do  so.  I  do  not 
care  if  thou  takest  all  the  eels  in  the  lake.  Thou  art 
welcome  to  them." 

Had  Waterton  given  us  nothing  but  whimsies,  his 
were  not  only  an  odd  but  an  obvious  personality. 
But  Waterton  combines  the  incompatibles  of  truth  and 
eccentricity,  much  in  the  same  way  that  Lamb  did. 
With  Lamb  the  process  was  a  conscious  literary  artifice, 
as  it  was  with  Lear's  Fool.  But  Waterton  reveals 
truth  in  and  through  a  series  of  antics  of  which  he  was 


208       BIRDS  OF  THE  COUNTRYSIDE 

as  unconscious  as  a  pompous  man  is  of  the  irony  his 
demonstrations  of  truth  excite.  In  his  work,  truth,, 
that  Quaker  maid,  enjoys  herself  in  motley  as  to  the 
manner  born.  His  was  a  pane  in  the  dome  of  many- 
coloured  glass,  not  clouded  like  the  others,  but  admitting 
the  white  radiance  through  an  undimmed  surface — of 
a  very  peculiar  shape.  His  other  dualism  does  not  seem 
to  us  so  remarkable  as  it  was  then.  There  are  examples 
to-day  of  writers  who  recognize  that  art  and  science 
reach  the  same  conclusions  through  different  paths, 
Havelock  Ellis,  Arthur  Thomson,  W.  H.  Hudson,  Patrick 
Geddes  and  a  very  few  others,  and  doubtless  there  will 
be  many  more  in  the  future,  when  art  and  science  are 
seen  to  be  indispensable  and  complementary  to  one 
another  and  our  absurd  departmentalizing  of  truth  has 
been  broken  down.  For  science  fulfils  the  law  and  the 
prophets,  and  the  Honorary  Presidents  of  the  British 
Association  should  be  Blake,  Shelley,  Wordsworth  and 
Francis  Thompson. 

Modern  science  has  made  nature  infinitely  more  inter- 
esting to  man  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the 
world  ;  it  has  heightened  and  broadened  our  knowledge 
of  natural  phenomena,  not  to  the  loss  but  the  gain  of 
our  sense  of  wonder  at  the  eternal  fitness  of  things.  The 
faculties  of  observation  and  imagination  have  come  to 
supplement  and  strengthen  each  other  in  such  a  way 
that  spiritual  reality  shall  not  degenerate  into  make- 
believe  and  material  reality  into  the  staleness  of  wont- 
The  most  wonderful  of  fairy  tales  have  turned  out  to 
be  the  facts  and  history  of  evolution,  while  the  more 
profound  among  men  of  science  have  come  more  and 
more  to  use  the  terminology  of  art  in  expressing  them. 
For  the  self-expression  of  nature  is  now  seen  to  be  in 
unity,  individuality,  creativeness  and  process  the  most 
masterly  work  of  art  revealed  to  human  senses.  Of 
this  revelation  Waterton  is  one  of  the  pioneers. 


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T7NWIN  BBOTHERS,  LIMITED,  THE  GBESHAM  PEEBS,  WOKING  AND  LONDON 


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